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Scanning the "New Arrivals" shelf of my local library recently, I was very pleasantly surprised to come across an intriguing new book by Professor Kurt Beyer: Grace Hopperand the Invention of the Information Age [MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2009)]. I first met the then-Commander Grace Hopper, USN, in Seattle where she gave the keynote address at the History of Programming Languages conference in June of 1978. As I recollect, the meeting was standingroom only, particularly in the sessions where Grace Hopper participated.
The conference attendees frequently referred to Grace Hopper as "Amazing Grace." Indeed, the numerous achievements of Grace Hopper in computer programming were nothing short of amazing. She had an outstanding career that encompassed military research and development, academic research and teaching, and business software design and development.
Professor Beyer has written quite an interesting biography of this leading pioneer in computers and programming. He details...