Gutsy Girls Go For Science: Programmers , livre ebook

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programming
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Printed in the United States.
Books in the Gutsy Girls Go for Science series
explore career connections for young scientists!
Explore the lives of some of the world's
most amazing female astronauts:
Bonnie Dunbar, Sally Ride, Mae Jemison,
Sunita Williams, and Serena Auñón-Chancellor are
all pioneers in the field of space exploration.
Meet five female engineers who revolutionized the
role of women in engineering, including
Ellen Swallow Richards, Emily Warren Roebling,
Kate Gleason, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, and
Mary Jackson.
Meet five female paleontologists who made
breakthrough discoveries of ancient life from millions
of years ago, including Mary Anning, Mignon Talbot,
Tilly Edinger, Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska, and
Mary Leakey.
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Other books in the series include:
Check out more titles at www.nomadpress.net
O
N
T
E
N
T
S
A D A
L O V E L A C E
The Countess
of Computers
A passion for numbers
leads this countess
to become the first
computer programmer!
11
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Computer Talk
Without programmers,
computers wouldn't
be very useful.
Find out why!
1
G R A C E H O P P E R
Queen of Code
When WWII broke out, Grace helped the best
way she could—by working with computers.
29      
C
T H E E N I A C W O M E N
Unsung Heroes
Very few people knew that a group of
six women were responsible for
programming the ENIAC.
47
M A R G A R E T
H A M I L T O N
Programming to the Moon
Without Margaret's programming
know-how, astronauts might have
never made it to the moon!
81
D O R O T H Y V A U G H A N
Early NASA Programmer
This woman conquered other people's
opinions on gender and race to become
NASA's first African American supervisor.
63
G L O S S A R Y
•
R E S O U R C E S
•
I N D E X            
“
Coders can be superheroes!
”
—
Vanessa Hurst ,
programmer and co-founder
of
Girl Develop It!
1
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R
O
D
U
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T
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O
N
A C A R S T O P S A S A T R A F F I C
L I G H T C H A N G E S T O R E D .
When the light turns green, it means the car can go.
Red equals stop. Green equals go. It's a simple set of
instructions that the traffic light—and the traffic!—follows.
C
o
m
p
u
t
e
r
T
a
l
k
This an example of code used in everyday
life. Code is a way of transferring information
between people and machines. A programmer
used code to tell the traffic light what to
do. It is the language of computerized
devices. And it's one of the most powerful
types of communication today.
2
Do you have computers or laptops
at your school? What about a
smartphone? All of these devices
that we use every day rely on
programming to work.
Digital devices can go places that
people can't go—inside hurricanes, to
the ocean floor, and beyond the solar
system. The programs that are part of
these devices make all this possible.
Without programs, computers
wouldn't know what to do.
Programmers use a step-by-step
approach to solve a problem.
Every app a smartphone uses,
every job a computer does, every
turn a Mars rover makes, a
programmer had to write a set of
instructions to make it possible.
Sound like a lot of work? It is.
3
Gutsy Girls Go for Science: Programmers
BC—Before Computers!
It's hard to imagine life without computers, but 100 years ago, that's
exactly what life was like—no computers.
People did things manually, even when it took a long time. That includes
doing long math problems (no calculators), waiting for film to be exposed
in early cameras (no selfies), and using
paper maps (no GPS).
Humans are always looking for new
ways to do things faster and better.
As time went on, people changed the
way they made products. Companies
opened factories, where many products
could be produced at the same time.
And machines helped with the job!
C O M P U T E R
C A R E E R S
Who works with
computers? About 62
percent of Americans use
the internet in their jobs.
About 4 million people
work in the computer
science and information
industry. Programming
and software engineering
are some of the highest -
demand careers today.
More than half a million
new computer and
information jobs are
expected to exist in the
United States by 2026.
4
I
N T R O D U C T I O N
C O M P U T E R T A L K
Once engineers invented circuits,
computers began to go digital. People
learned to program those digital
computers to do different things in
different areas. The U.S. military was
one of the first users of computers.
These early computers, built in the
1940s, took up entire rooms! They
took much more time to use than the
computers we have today.
C O M P U T E R R I C E
Today, there is a computer
the size of a grain of rice. The
Michigan Micro Mote can take
pictures, read data, and record
information. Researchers are still
experimenting, but they hope
that the tiny computers could be
injected into a human body to
check temperature and identify
possible health problems.
5
Gutsy Girls Go for Science: Programmers
As people worked on the design of
computers and found ways to make them
smaller and faster and cheaper, these
machines began to appear more and
more in businesses and homes. The 1980s
saw personal computers, or PCs, become
very popular. Today, many people walk
around with a very small computer in
their pockets—a smartphone!
All of these computers and computer
programs need programmers.
Programmers give computers specific
instructions on what to do.
As calculators
became more advanced,
they became smaller. We've
seen the same thing happen with
computers. Why? Is smaller better?
W
onder
hy
?
6
I
N T R O D U C T I O N
C O M P U T E R T A L K
Crack the Code
Computers read binary code, or machine code. A
binary digit, also known as a bit, is a building block
of information. The most basic code is binary, using a
system of zeros (0) and ones (1). The series of 0s and 1s
is hard for humans to read, but this is what computers
understand.
So how do we get from human language to the
computer language made of 0s and 1s? Programmers
write instructions in a language called source
code, which looks a bit like random words
and punctuation, but is actually filled with
meaning! This source code is translated
into the machine code that computers
understand. Sometimes, computer
scientists use a program called
a compiler to do this.
Have you ever played Minecraft?
This computer game is written with a
computer language called Java!
7
Gutsy Girls Go for Science: Programmers
In this book, we'll meet several women
who cracked the code of working in the
computer field and made technological
advances that changed the way
we live! You'll learn about Ada
Lovelace, Grace Hopper,
the six ENIAC women
who programmed the
first electronic computer,
Dorothy Vaughan, and
Margaret Hamilton. Ready
to get busy? Let's go!
There are
lots of vocabulary
words in this book!
Try to figure out the
meaning by looking at the
surrounding sentences or
find the definition in the
glossary.
8
I
N T R O D U C T I O N
C O M P U T E R T A L K
9
Gutsy Girls Go for Science: Programmers
W H E N Y O U L O O K A T A P A G E O N T H E I N T E R N E T , T H E
C O D E I S N ' T I M M E D I A T E L Y E V I D E N T . B U T T H E R E A R E
W A Y S T O S E E T H E S O U R C E C O D E . T A K E A L O O K ! A L W A Y S
G E T A N A D U L T ' S P E R M I S S I O N T O U S E T H E I N T E R N E T .
Go to the internet with
your favorite browser.
1
2
Navigate to one of your favorite websites.
Examine the elements of the page and
how they interact with each other.
3
B
e
h
i
n
d
t
h
e
S
c
e
n
e
s
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F
I E L D
A
S S I G N M E N T
To see what the code for the web page
looks like, follow the directions below
for the browser you're using.
✓
CHROME: Right click with your mouse
over a fixed headline. Left click on
“Inspect Element” to see the code.
✓
SAFARI: Enable the Developer menu. Go to
Preferences > Advanced in the Safari menu. Click
“Show Develop menu in menu bar.” Close the
Preferences window and go the Develop menu,
where you will click on “Show Page Source.”
✓
I N T E R N E T E X P L O R E R : P r e s s t h e
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