[Ads-l] Grace Murray Hopper Honored by Yale

[James A. Landau]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2017 03:40:52 Zone + 0000 "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:

<quote>
<snip>  But I am curious whether Hopper's principal claim to popular fame, the colorful but wholly erroneous claim that she coined the term "bug" for defects in computer hardware or software, will be repeated by the media or Yale in connection with the naming.
</quote>

The log entry (see https://www.wired.com/2013/12/googles-doodle-honors-grace-hopper-and-entomology/)
reads “First actual case of bug being found”.

This strongly implies (if not proves) that the term "bug" for a technical problem was already in existence and widely known, and that this was the first actual case of a actual biological bug (in this case a moth) causing such a bug. 

The above-quoted website also suggests that the term "debugging" was invented around this time, if not by Dr. Hopper.  Anyone have data?

- Jim Landau

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