I trained as a mathematician — a Vassar degree in mathematics and physics in 1928, a Yale PhD in 1934 under Øystein Ore — and taught mathematics at Vassar from 1931, the foundation I brought to programming.
My work on programming languages was recognized with the 1991 National Medal of Technology, election to the National Academy of Engineering, the first Computer History Museum Fellow Award and the ACM award that carries my name.
In the 1970s I advocated that the Defense Department replace large, centralized systems with networks of small, distributed computers, where any user on any node could access common databases.
I rank training young people as my most important accomplishment after building the compiler: when they ask whether they can do something, I say "Try it," back them up, and keep stirring them to take chances.
I keep a clock on my wall that runs counterclockwise as a standing reminder to fight "We've always done it this way" — the habit that blocks new technology and new methods.
My case for English-language programming in one line: most people find an English statement far easier to write than symbols, so the computer, not the programmer, should do the translating.
When generals and admirals asked why satellite communication took so long, I handed out pieces of wire just under a foot long — the distance light travels in a nanosecond — and later used them to show why computers must be small to be fast.
Named the company's first director of automatic programming in 1954, I ran the department that released some of the first compiler-based programming languages, MATH-MATIC and FLOW-MATIC.
Assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard in 1944, I joined Howard Aiken's Mark I programming staff, co-authored three papers on the machine and wrote the first computer manual.
Directing the Navy Programming Languages Group from 1967 to 1977, I developed validation software for COBOL and its compiler and standards for testing FORTRAN and COBOL; the Navy's conformance tests pulled vendors' dialects together.
