Monday, April 14, 2003

Graceful wisdom A discussion on another forum I frequent led to a mistaken comment by one poster that Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, in her earlier years, had invented the BASIC programming language. She did not, although she had a hand in inventing COBOL and discovered the first computer "bug", literally a moth trapped in a Navy Mark I.(Scroll down for a picture of the moth) While researching my response to the incorrect post, I ran across this marvelous comment from the late RADM Hopper: On advice to the young (whom she defines as "anybody half my age"): "You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership. It might help if we ran the MBAs out of Washington." Grace Hopper died in 1992 at the age of 86 after retiring from the Navy a mere six years earlier. The last time I checked, there were still too many MBAs in Washington. 10:17:14 AM    Oh yeah? []