Jean Sammet not often let something get in the best way of her skilled targets. As a younger pupil, she was barred from attending prestigious all-boys faculties, so she pursued her love of arithmetic at the perfect establishments she might discover that have been open to women and girls. Following her school commencement, she grew to become one of many first programmers at Sperry, an electronics producer in New York, regardless of having just about no prior expertise with computer systems.
In 1959, after studying to code on the job only a few years prior, Sammet helped write the muse of Cobol, a programming language extensively utilized in computer systems that carried out large-scale knowledge processing jobs. Later, as a programming supervisor at IBM in 1971, she helped develop Formac, the primary generally used pc language for symbolic manipulation of mathematical formulation.
She was honored in 2009 with an IEEE Computer Society Pioneer Award for “pioneering work and lifelong achievement as one of many first builders and researchers in programming languages.” Her profession and contributions have been chronicled in an oral history with the IEEE History Center.
An early love of numbers
Born and raised in New York Metropolis, Sammet developed an early curiosity in arithmetic. Her gender precluded her from attending distinguished New York math- and science-focused faculties such because the Bronx High School of Science, based on a biography printed within the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. She attended Julia Richman High School, an all-girls facility, and took each math class it supplied.
Sammet knew she wished to main in math in school. In a 2001 interview with the IEEE History Center, she stated, “I checked out all of the catalogs from all the ladies’ faculties and determined Smith and Mount Holyoke appeared to have the perfect math programs.”
Sammet was accepted into each schools however selected Mount Holyoke, which is in South Hadley, Mass.
“I’m not even positive why I picked Holyoke, however I’m very grateful that I did,” she stated within the IEEE oral historical past. “It was an amazing school. Nonetheless is.”
She obtained her bachelor’s diploma in arithmetic in 1947 and went on to earn a grasp’s diploma in math in 1949 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
She joined the Illinois school as a instructing assistant, then in 1951 moved again to New York Metropolis.
Improvement of Cobol
Sammet joined Sperry in 1953 as an engineer. She initially carried out mathematical evaluation and ran the corporate’s analog pc, however two years later, she was tasked with supervising a rising division of pc programmers.
In 1955 Sperry merged with Remington Rand, an early enterprise machine producer in New York Metropolis.
That gave Sammet the chance to work with computing pioneer Grace Hopper on the UNIVAC I, the primary general-purpose digital digital pc manufactured in the USA.
Sammet left Remington Rand in 1958 to affix Sylvania Electric Products, a producer in Needham, Mass. She had utilized for an engineering place however was employed as a software program developer.
Whereas at Sylvania, Sammet was appointed to the U.S. Department of Defense short-range committee, which included a gaggle of programmers from six pc producers. Based on a May 1959 meeting summary, the DOD established the committee to design the specs of “a standard enterprise language” that might work throughout all computer systems—one which was “problem-oriented and machine-independent.”
Sammet chaired the assertion language subcommittee, which included 5 different programmers from Sylvania, IBM, and RCA. It was tasked with designing the muse of Cobol.
Based on the Historical past Heart interview, the subcommittee accomplished most of its duties throughout a two-week dash, working across the clock whereas holed up on the Sherry-Netherland resort in New York Metropolis. The subcommittee offered its proposal for the code in November 1959, and Sylvania and the DOD accepted it with minimal adjustments.
The language, structurally just like English, was partially primarily based on Hopper’s FLOW-MATIC programming language. Throughout a time when computer systems have been operating extraordinarily complicated code, Cobol allowed early mainframe computer systems to primarily communicate the identical language, eliminating the necessity to manually program the identical data-processing functions into each new machine.
Management at IBM and ACM
After two years at Sylvania, Sammet left in 1961 to affix IBM in Cambridge, Mass., the place she managed pc language growth inside the firm’s knowledge techniques division. There she led the crew that developed Formac, a components manipulation compiler. It was the primary pc algebra system to have vital industrial use.
After the system’s launch in 1964, she continued researching modeling programming and mathematical languages. In 1969 she had Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals printed. The e-book lined the 120 languages in existence on the time.
From 1968 to 1974, Sammet served as programming expertise planning supervisor for IBM’s federal techniques division, which performed defense-related analysis and techniques integration functions for the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Postal Service. She additionally led the corporate’s work on the Ada programming language.
She grew to become energetic within the Association for Computing Machinery in 1961 whereas engaged on Formac. In an ACM interview, she stated she joined so she might community with professionals working in her discipline at Bell Labs, Carnegie Mellon, and different establishments. She defined that such alternatives just about didn’t exist on the time outdoors of ACM and different skilled associations.
She chaired the particular curiosity committee on symbolic and algebraic manipulation (now referred to as SIGSAM). She additionally served on numerous councils and planning committees.
She was elected vice chairman of ACM in 1972 and have become its first feminine president in 1974.
Among the many accolades she obtained for her accomplishments have been the 1989 Lovelace Award from the Association for Women in Computing and an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke in 1978.
Sammet died in Could 2017 at age 89. A longtime supporter of Mount Holyoke, she endowed a professorship there: the Sammet professor of pc science.
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