Editing Grace Hopper (section)

=== UNIVAC ===
In 1949, Hopper became an employee of the [[Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation]] as a senior mathematician and joined the team developing the [[UNIVAC I]].<ref name=Ogilvie /> Hopper also served as UNIVAC director of Automatic Programming Development for Remington Rand. The UNIVAC was the first known large-scale electronic computer to be on the market in 1951.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Camp |first=Carole Ann|date=2004 |title=American women inventors |location=Berkeley Heights, NJ |publisher=Enslow Publishers |isbn=978-0-7660-1538-8 |oclc=48398924}}</ref>

When Hopper recommended the development of a new programming language that would use entirely English words, she "was told very quickly that [she] couldn't do this because computers didn't understand English." Still, she persisted. "It's much easier for most people to write an English statement than it is to use symbols", she explained. "So I decided data processors ought to be able to write their programs in English, and the computers would translate them into machine code."<ref>{{cite web |title=Women in History |url=https://stories.vassar.edu/2017/assets/images/170706-legacy-of-grace-hopper-hopperpdf.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171006153044/http://stories.vassar.edu/2017/assets/images/170706-legacy-of-grace-hopper-hopperpdf.pdf |archive-date=October 6, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Her idea was not accepted for three years. In the meantime, she published her first paper on the subject, compilers, in 1952. In the early 1950s, the company was taken over by the [[Remington Rand]] corporation, and it was while she was working for them that her original [[compiler]] work was done. The program was known as the A compiler and its first version was [[A-0 programming language|A-0]].<ref name="mcgee2004" />{{rp|11}}

In 1952, she had an operational link-loader, which at the time was referred to as a compiler. She later said that "Nobody believed that", and that she "had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic."<ref>{{cite web |last=Schreiber |first=Philip |date=March–April 1987 |title=The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper |url=http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/hopper-wit.html |website=Yale University |language=en-US |access-date=April 5, 2023}}</ref>

In 1954 Hopper was named the company's first director of automatic programming.<ref name=Ogilvie/> Beginning in 1954, Hopper's work was influenced by the [[Laning and Zierler system]], which was the first compiler to accept algebraic notation as input.<ref name="Beyer_ch10">{{cite book |last=Beyer |first=Kurt W. |year=2012 |title=Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=9780262517263 |chapter=10}}</ref> Her department released some of the first compiler-based programming languages, including [[MATH-MATIC]] and [[FLOW-MATIC]].<ref name=Ogilvie />

Hopper said that her compiler [[A-0 System|A-0]], "translated mathematical notation into machine code. Manipulating symbols was fine for mathematicians but it was no good for data processors who were not symbol manipulators. Very few people are really symbol manipulators. If they are, they become professional mathematicians, not data processors. It's much easier for most people to write an English statement than it is to use symbols. So I decided data processors ought to be able to write their programs in English, and the computers would translate them into machine code. That was the beginning of [[COBOL]], a [[computer language]] for data processors. I could say 'Subtract income tax from pay' instead of trying to write that in octal code or using all kinds of symbols. [[COBOL]] is the major language used today in data processing."<ref>{{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=Lynn |date=1981 |title=Women of Wisdom: Grace Murray Hopper |url=https://books.apple.com/us/book/grace-murray-hopper/id1197529986 |publisher=Lynn Gilbert, Inc.}}</ref>