We can now watch Grace Hopper's famed 1982 lecture on YouTube
Briefly

Hopper championed the development of a new programming language based on English words. 'It's much easier for most people to write an English statement than it is to use symbols,' she reasoned. By making programming more accessible, she fundamentally changed how people interacted with computers, allowing users to express their instructions in a familiar language while the machines handled the translation into machine code. This innovation paved the way for future programming languages and changed the landscape of computer science.
Despite initial skepticism from her superiors, Hopper persisted in her work on what would become compilers. Her dedication to making programming more user-friendly involved bridging the gap between human languages and machine language. Hopper's efforts contributed substantially to the rise of modern programming languages and enabled countless individuals to engage with computer technology effectively, promoting the idea that more people could participate in the growing field of computer science.
Read at Ars Technica
[
|
]