Today, technology has taken this world by storm. Everything we have around us is a result of innovation. Our lives today would be impossible without technology.
When we talk about software development, the first thing that pops into the minds is that it is a male-dominated field. Little do we know about the amazing women who have made many important and lasting contributions to programming throughout the decades. From the dawn of processors today, women have designed and developed programming languages that have had a significant, lasting impact on software development.
Today in this post, I would like to highlight a few such women who helped bring about a major change in programming.
Programming Languages Invented By Women
1. Kathleen Booth – Assembly Language
In 1950, Kathleen Booth created the assembly language (a low-level symbolic code programming language for a computer). She also designed the assembler for the first ARC computers at Birkbeck college in London.
Assembly language was developed to make computer programming easier and more reliable. She also worked there and taught a programming course.
2. Grace Hopper – COBOL
Grace Hopper is one of the very famous names in the history of programming. She was one of the first programmers in the history of computers. She was an American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral.
Grace was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I the computer and invented the first compiler for a computer programming language. Hopper also led the team that invented COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language), the first user-friendly business computer software program.
3. Jean Sammet – FORMAC
An American computer scientist, Jean Sammet, developed the programming language called the FORMAC, which was the first widely used computer language for symbolic manipulation of mathematical formulas. Before she was hired to create FORMAC, she had worked alongside Grace Hopper as a part of the group that developed COBOL.
4. Roberta Williams – Graphical Adventure Games
Who doesn’t love playing video games! If you’re a fan of video games, you need to thank Roberta Williams. She did revolutionary work in graphical adventure games for personal computers, particularly the King’s Quest series.
Graphical adventure games aren’t trendy these days, but they were one of the most popular things back then. These games helped pave the way for today’s modern multi-dimension games.
5. Radia Perlman – Mother Of Internet
Radia Joy Perlman is a software designer and network engineer. She is most famous for her invention of the spanning-tree protocol, which is fundamental to network bridges’ operation while working for Digital Equipment Corporation. She is very popularly known as the mother of the internet. But she likes to stay behind the curtains and doesn’t like people calling her that.
6. Ada Lovelace – The First Computer Programmer
Ada Lovelace has been called the world’s first computer programmer. She is chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was so intellectually gifted and unique that she developed an algorithm for a computer that didn’t yet exist until a very long time.
Final Thoughts,
These are just a few names from the huge pool of amazing women who helped change the programming world.
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