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From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.

— Grace Hopper

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Source, in full

On the removal of a 2-inch-long moth from the Harvard Mark II experimental computer at Harvard in 1947, as quoted in Time 16 April 1984. Note that the term "bug" was in use by people in several technical disciplines long before that; Thomas Edison used the term, and it was common AT&T parlance in the 1920s to refer to bugs in the wires. Hopper is credited with popularizing the term's use in the computing field.

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Computers

More quotes by Grace Hopper

I've always been more interested in the future than in the past.

We must state relationships, not procedures.

Management and the Computer of the Future (1962)

In total desperation, I called over to the engineering building, and I said, "Please cut off a nanosecond and send it over to me."

I handed my passport to the immigration officer, and he looked at it and looked at me and said, "What are you?"

Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, "We've always done it this way." I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.

The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper (1987)

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A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.

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Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer.

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Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Grace Hopper (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.