Google’s doodle of Grace Hopper who would have celebrated her 107th birthday on the 9th December 2013
Who doesn’t love a bit of etymology right? For those who don’t know, the word etymology means finding out what words mean. As I was about to make a search onto Google this morning, and every other minute of every single day, I noticed that today’s doodle had a big computer in it; Google had caught my interest by the short and curlys.
Grace Hopper was an American Computer Scientist whose list of achievements’ comprise of programming the Harvard Mark I computer, creating the first machine independent programming language COBOL and receiving the Defense Distinguished Service Medal on retirement from the US Navy.
She also coined the phrase ‘debugging’.
Whilst Grace was working on the Mark II computer, the system started to slow and not function at full capacity. She discovered that a moth had managed to creep into the computer! Once Grace removed the creature, and the computer was back up to speed, she said that she ‘debugged’ the computer (notice the moth fly out of the computer at the end of the above animation).
Since being in the Technology Recruitment industry, I have had to constantly research countless acronyms, inquire about interminable terminology and attend every conference I can to make sure I truly understand what my clients are asking for and what my candidates claim they can do (at least I know what debugging is now).
It is easy to become complacent and stick to buzzwords that you have no clue what they mean. But, always remember that activity is inextricably linked to success and those consultants who are genuine specialists will be on top!
Joe Burridge 