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From: tewok@tove.cs.umd.edu (Uncle Wayne)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.internals,comp.misc
Subject: Grace Hopper and The Bug
Message-ID: <28385@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 7 Dec 90 19:34:00 GMT
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Reply-To: tewok@tove.cs.umd.edu (Uncle Wayne)
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
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In a recent article hunt@dg-rtp.rtp.dg.com writes:
>
>Well, I for one don't believe your father-in-law.  I heard Grace
>Hopper speak once while I was working in Massachusetts, and she told
>the story exactly as related here by other folks.  I have no reason
>to doubt her.  She's an extraordinary lady.
>

Believe or don't believe -- it makes no difference to me.  I learned
long ago to take everything politicians say with a pound of salt.
(Anyone who doesn't think an admiral is a politician has a bit to
learn.) From things I've heard of her, I have no doubt that she's an
extraordinary person.  That, however, doesn't make her right.  It is
quite easy to misremember facts.  Stories easily mutate and facts
easily change, often without being noticed, the longer one tells them.

On the other hand, I know my father-in-law rather well and trust him
implicitly.  He has no reason to lie about this.  He has (or is it
had? -- I heard recently that she had died) no grudge against Adm.
Hopper.  He also wasn't on-duty when the bug was found, so he's not
trying to get the "glory", such as it is, back for himself.  Like I
said, though, believe what you want.


In a recent article jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org writes:
>
> FWIW, I've never heard Grace actually claim to be the person who actually
> found the bug, and I'm not sure she ever even claimed to be on duty 
> at the time it was found.  Certainly she has appropriated the story as 
> one of her staple items for any talk she gives, but I don't think she 
> crossed the line between "this is something that happened where I was 
> once employed" and "this is something which happened to me". 
>

That may be true and I'm quite happy to believe that she didn't make
these claims.  Unfortunately, I was never able to hear her speak and so
I don't have first-hand knowledge of her bug story.  My article was in
response to the stories I've heard over the net (which we all know is a
reliable source of information :) that she claimed the bug as "hers".
Ever since I first heard her bug story over the net I knew that Adm.
Hopper was the one who found the bug.  It was only recently that I was
told the truth about the bug.

For more comments about the "truth" of the new story, see my response
above to hunt@dg-rtp.rtp.dg.com.


				Wayne Morrison