The ( very, very short ) History of Computer Programming Languages

A computer works by moving binary code ( 01101101 ) into specific locations of that computer's memory.  It is "still possible to program computers using these "low level" programming methods.  As computers were developed in the 1950s these methods were too slow and difficult to check.  Computer scientists began to develop "higher level" programming languages.  These languages did some of the work that was once done by the human programmer.  The computer was used to start programming itself.    One of the scientist was Grace Hopper (https://www.biography.com/scientist/grace-hopper).  Grace was working in the United States Navy and began writing code that used english language "words" to define lower level programming functions.  Her work is still used today in the progamming languages that we use at school.  She would be delighted to see the block programming used in Code.org and MIT App Inventor.

  • If you use a Raspberry Pi computer it has many programming languages available.
  • An important task in the Second Semester of this class is to develop your skill with a computer programming language that will help you build your second project.
  • You don't need to continue with your first project, chosen in first term.  You may start a new project.  The decision is yours.

Tasks and Activities

  1. Choose a computer progam that you will learn in the next 3 weeks.  You can pick a program that you have already started to use.
  2. Who is Grace Hopper?
  3. Why is Grace Hopper an important STEM person?
  4. What was Grace Hopper's field of study when she went to University?
  5. In what way will the study of Mathematics at this school help you become a STEM expert?  Please give specific mathematical skills that you think are important in STEM

Don't forget to email your choices/answers to Mr. Widmer by the end of this week.  Keep a copy of that email in your Google Docs folder.