Not really the creator of COBOL, it seems http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/9/191176-innovators-assemble/fulltext http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/9/191176-i

Not really the creator of COBOL, it seems http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/9/191176-innovators-assemble/fulltext http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2015/9/191176-innovators-assem... [A¢M paywall]: > On page 117 Isaacson credits Hopper as "the technical lead in coordinating the creation of COBOL," a hugely important standard language for business programming that was defined jointly by several computer companies. Standards committee work is a difficult thing to dramatize, which is presumably why Isaacson gives COBOL no more than a passing mention, but as historian of technology Janet Abbate recently noted, his omission slights several women who, unlike Hopper, were on the technical committee in question. Among them is Jean Sammett, who made the largest single contribution to the design of COBOL. Sammet has stated that Hopper was "not the mother, creator, or developer of COBOL," an idea Hopper reportedly endorsed by calling herself the "grandmother of COBOL" rather than its creator. > [...] Sammet has not been forgotten, as a fellow of the Computer History Museum and a winner of the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award, but sits on the wrong side of a growing chasm separating the handful of women chosen for public veneration from those whose names are known only to specialists. > This is an example of what sociologist of science Robert K. Merton called the "Matthew Effect," the tendency for the most famous person involved in any collaborative project, however peripherally, to be remembered by the public as the key contributor. He named it after a passage in Matthew's Gospel, noting that "unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." Over time the famous become more famous, while the moderately well known are forgotten.