Margaret Hamilton, NASA's lead developer for Apollo program, stands next to all the code she wrote by hand that took humanity to the moon in 1969
She didn’t write all of that, she had a team of programmers working under her
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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She was the first software engineer who was hired for the project and did write a good chunk of the code. She was more than someone who simply delegates and leads. Hell, she is the one who coined the term software engineer. She played a hell of a role in the history of software development. Let's not try to diminish that.
He isn't trying to diminish but these misleading exaggerated titles are pretty annoying and confusing at times.
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Similar to what happened with the first image of a black hole. The whole thing was somehow attributed to one lady in the press. Turns out, it was a whole team of scientists working together to achieve that.
Et al of the world, assemble!
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Really like her white and gold dress
Oh no, not again
Beautifully, perfectly evil... Well, played, you devious swine!
Here we go
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Man, I thought when we left Reddit shit was going to change?
First off, SHE didn't write all the code, she led a team (And probably wrote a decent chunk herself). It wasn't by hand it was on computers, no one writes computer code by hand, that's just blatantly a myth, even punch cards were normally done BY the computer, not "by hand".
Also something I've questioned before is if that's really "The source code" and not maybe 11 copies (There's 11 binders there) Though most reports from reputable sources say that's "Listings". AKA that's the logging, not the code itself. The code itself may be printed out but would be kept on Punch cards (Again printed by the computer, not by hand). And the final form was actually a rope. (no really)
The thing is the story of Margaret Hamilton (And in fact most programmers of the time) is incredible enough. But when you blatantly lie like this it actually diminishes her accomplishment because it's obviously false and people will tear it down or disbelieve it because it's blatant misinformation.
This is why I left Next Fucking Level, because it became misinformation and karma whoring. It became about the "Story" rather than the actual person/skill/talent/figure. But on Reddit the reason was because people wanted Karma. Shouldn't we have left the basement tier BS and lying behind as well?
I don't know how old you are but when I was first introduced to programming in the early 80s all "source code" (Mostly basic and thus interpreted where program is the source code) was referred to as "listings" (this was when the main source of games were monthly magazines where you typed in a listing from a magazine and saved it to tape E.G.. The "Program listings" (as the Smithsonian calls them) seem to be print outs of the programs for verification purposes.
The process of entering was indeed handwritten, on specially printed sheets of paper that was then handed to a punchcard operator to create the cards (again according to the Smithsonian), But the stack of paper is clearly not those sheets as it is form-feed printer paper.
It is completely accurate that Margaret Hamilton lead a team, so while there are inaccuracies I'd say this not as much of a lie as just a combination of confused concepts,
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Including comments on the code with expressions like "Crank the silly thing arround", "see if he's lying", "off to see the wizard" and a sub-routine called "burnbaby". More here: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-code-that-took-astronauts-to-the-moon-is-now-on-github
She's definitely a legend.
That is cool. There is really wild stuff in here, like in the landing guidance equations
TC BANKCALL # TEMPORARY, I HOPE HOPE HOPE
CADR STOPRATE # TEMPORARY, I HOPE HOPE HOPE
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Did you know that programs for the Apollo guidance computer were woven, by hand, in to Core Rope Memory modules?
Here's a really cool demonstration of using Core Rope to make a drum synthesizer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytjONYkU94
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i thought you were making some weird joke.... turns out to be the most incredibly interesting thing i have read maybe ever.
awesome!
Twitter employee getting ready for a code review with Elon
This is the video of when she received the Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama: youtube.com/watch?v=X1PNp_YggAA
In this ceremony he gives the award to Margaret Hamilton and also Grace Hopper. Both well deserved!
She wrote code without stack overflow for her job, and the code worked as intended. That alone is worthy of respect.
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Wouldn't it have worked better if she wrote it into the computer? 🤔
The title is a bit misleading, this is a printout of the code that she indeed wrote into the computer first.
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These people should have millions of followers instead we follow kardashians. No wonder the world is going to end😥
She did computer stuff..... She's smart enough to not fuck with anything that has followers.
Hate to tell you, but like most people who do computer stuff still use social media. I mean the linux kernel has it's own lemmy instance.
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What a weird comment. The world is not going to end anytime soon for some social media preferences.
Amazing. Punch cards are before my time but did she have to plot out the code before creating punch cards? I'm wondering about the " by hand " part of it.
I was a CS major in late 70s and used punch cards for Fortran programs. I’m guessing “by hand” meant writing the code with pencil/pen on paper and then typing up the punch cards for each line of code.
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Also worth remembering: The Apollo guidance computer had less compute power than a USB charger. That thing sent us to the moon. https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a30916315/usb-c-charger-apollo-11-computer/
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Such a legend! Every time I see this post I'm stunned by the impact she made
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