667 pointsby muglug4 hours ago22 comments
  • diskzero2 hours ago
    I was able to meet her, and others who worked at the MIT Instrumentation/Draper Lab, as a start-up I was with received funding from a VC firm founded by other Draper Lab members from the Apollo era. I was totally out of my league talking with them. This was thirty years ago and I remember her talking about formalized control systems. It was fascinating but went totally over my head. My startup was a fairly silly multimedia CD-ROM company and I was just happy to be in the room.
  • WarOnPrivacy4 hours ago
    Dang. She was a remarkable stand-out, in fields full of remarkable people.

    The pic here is often people's first intro to her https://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apo...

    • el_benhameen20 minutes ago
      “There was no choice but to be pioneers” is a great line.
    • underlipton32 minutes ago
      First thing I thought of, too. "Who? ...Wait, not the cool book chick!"

      Tangential: the software documented in the books next to her were likely developed with a level of rigor that consumer software can only dream of, per the seminal article on similar matters: https://www.eng.auburn.edu/~kchang/comp6710/readings/They%20...

  • muunbo3 hours ago
    Margaret Hamilton actually coined the term "software engineer" IIRC. Rest in peace
    • catskull2 hours ago
      She did! A few years ago I actually tracked down the source of that, which was an interview done for an obscure textbook and republished it on my blog if you are interested in learning more: https://catskull.net/interview-with-margaret-h-hamilton.html
      • srcreighan hour ago
        This is incredible, thanks a lot for making it available for us.
    • pvab313 minutes ago
      IMO software is not engineering because it has nothing to with the physical sciences
      • akamaka8 minutes ago
        It becomes engineering when the software is flying to the moon and back.
    • penskymaterialan hour ago
      Little did she know, the term would be co-opted by guys changing the color of a button on a web site.
      • doginasuit35 minutes ago
        And gate-kept by just as many. I wonder what she'd take more issue with. My understanding is she wanted to elevate people who work on software, not draw a line around it.
  • EvanAnderson3 hours ago
    There is a very nice oral history the Computer History Museum produced: https://computerhistory.org/blog/margaret-hamilton-in-her-ow...

    In Levy's "Hackers" there is a story about late night hacking on the TX-0 that fouled-up some weather simulation code an academic user of the computer was running. After hearing this oral history I believe Margaret was the programmer and the code was for Prof. Edward Lorenz.

    • bitwize3 hours ago
      Allison Parrish talks about this in some depth. Turns out toxic masculinity was an integral part of the old-school "hacker" culture from the jump.

      http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/programming-forgetting...

      • kragen2 hours ago
        That page is 403, but I was able to get it at https://web.archive.org/web/20161220114912/http://opentransc...

        I don't think it justifies your claim; there's nothing in the historical sources about masculinity, just irresponsibility. It's probably true that women were not allowed to be as irresponsible as the guys who screwed up in this case, but that's not because of those guys' understanding of masculinity. It's because the sexist culture of the time afforded fewer opportunities to women, in particular, cutting them less slack for misbehavior. With a less sexist culture, we could have seen Margaret Hamilton's computational fluid dynamics project stymied by irresponsible monkeying by women instead of irresponsible monkeying by men. With a more sexist culture, we would have seen Margaret Hamilton unable to get her grievances redressed because she was a woman, and the midnight wiring club would have continued interfering with officially sanctioned users until one of them was a man.

      • MarkusWandel3 hours ago
        I had to go to an archive site to actually read it; the link says 403 forbidden. I don't really see this as toxic masculinity just because the officially sanctioned user was female. Just an honest mistake - they did test their mod, just not enough for all possible use cases of the computer.
  • marcelo-earth30 minutes ago
    RIP. I'll always remember her iconic pic with the stack of printed code
  • dzongaan hour ago
    her pic with the stack of printed code will always be iconic.

    rest well pioneer.

    • jshieran hour ago
      I don't usually correct this, but in her iconic photo she's standing next to printed output of an Apollo simulator run, not the actual source code for the AGC or lunar module.

      Edit: this may or may not be true. From what I can find it's probably a combination of both.

      IIRC she was running the simulation side of the lab that produced the AGC and LEM guidance software at the time of Apollo 11, then the AGC side, then the unified lab when it was reorganized in 1970.

      • dzongaan hour ago
        thanks for the correction. learnt something new.
  • xiphmont10 minutes ago
    Rest in peace, Ma'am.
  • Kim_Bruningan hour ago
    timmg's video explaining how the AGC worked is one of the better ones I've seen, if you actually want to understand in detail.
  • schaeferan hour ago
    Is any of the original Apollo code available to read?
    • xtajvan hour ago
      Not a direct answer to your question per se, but I would wholeheartedly recommend Frank O'Brien's "The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation" (ISBN 978-1-4419-0876-6).

      It reads like a lead engineer walking a new hire through the codebase.

      • an hour ago
        undefined
      • schaefer24 minutes ago
        This is a great recommendation. And considering the code base is in assembly, I'll gladly welcome a walkthrough.
  • metadaemon2 hours ago
    Weird, I was thinking about her monumental achievement just a few hours ago.
    • ghastmaster31 minutes ago
      She was an excellent leader in a time when women were not commonly in leadership roles. She clearly understood coding and perhaps changed the way the field viewed the importance of software. Did she do any coding that was monumental herself? All I can find is fluff pieces. She managed a team that developed the code for Apollo 11. She did not write all the code in the famous pictures. Did she write some of it or just guide the team in the right direction?
  • customguy3 hours ago
    According to Wikiquote, she coined the phrase "software engineering": https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton

    > In the early days of this project, software was treated like an adopted child and not taken as seriously as other engineering disciplines, such as hardware engineering, and was thought of as art and magic, not science. I have always believed that art and science were involved in its creation, but at the time most people thought otherwise. Knowing this, I fought to legitimize software so that both software engineering and those who built it would receive the respect they deserved, so I began using the term “software engineering” to differentiate it from hardware and other forms of engineering. When I first started using these words, they were considered funny. It was a running joke for a long time. They liked to make fun of my radical ideas. Software eventually earned the same respect as any other discipline.

    found another retelling: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/13/margaret-...

    > During the early days of Apollo, software was not taken as seriously as other engineering disciplines. Though in fact we had a complex system of systems, we weren’t getting credit for what was a legitimate field. It was out of desperation I came up with the term, to say: “Hey, we’re engineering too.” It was an ongoing joke for a long time. Then one day in a meeting, one of the most respected hardware gurus explained to everyone that he agreed with me. The process of building software should also be considered an engineering discipline, just like with hardware. It was a memorable moment.

  • QuantumAtom2 hours ago
    May her memory be a blessing
  • bitwize3 hours ago
    I've talked a lot about PRIDE, Milt Bryce's information-systems methodology that was perhaps the first commercially available, rigorous methodology for developing software and the first serious attempt to transform information systems development in the commercial sector from an arcane art into a proven, repeatable science. It really has few forbears.

    But... Margaret Hamilton was one of those forbears. She got the ideas out there; PRIDE just commercialized them and made them palatable to business IT shops.

  • throw_m239339an hour ago
    RIP, what a fantastic person she was.
  • jamiek882 hours ago
    The word legend is used too much. She absolutely qualifies.
  • saulpw4 hours ago
    This feels like a black bar event. RIP Margaret Hamilton.
    • EvanAnderson3 hours ago
      Definitely worthy of a black bar. She was a pioneer of making software quality into a formal discipline.
    • oliyoung3 hours ago
      Absolutley does
    • _doctor_love3 hours ago
      Came here to say this.
  • markus_zhang3 hours ago
    This definitely asks for a black ribbon on top of HN.

    What a loss!

    • mrexroad2 hours ago
      100%

      Tangent: Her LEGO minifig next to the Apollo code is one of my, and my daughter’s, favorites.

    • tarellel3 hours ago
      Yes please, This is absolutely necessary
    • omnicognate3 hours ago
      Good Lord yes
    • kragen2 hours ago
      [flagged]
      • diskzero2 hours ago
        A somewhat odd question and the best we can do is theorize and come up with opinions gathered from those who knew or associated with her. Maybe others who worked with her will comment here. We do know that the people who worked at the Draper Lab were "hackers" given one definition of hackers as a group of people who were fascinated with computers and systems that interconnected them. The Draper folks were certainly part of that early MIT culture.

        I know from personal experience working with Draper alums that many of them had very close personal and economic ties to the military and other government agencies and were not at all into Kevin Mitnick-type hackers.

        She certainly kept a low profile and maybe wouldn't want to be memorialized or maybe just didn't care. We are so used to people promoting and pushing their accomplishments these days, she seems somewhat of an anomaly; an extremely skilled and influential technologist who was content to continue doing the work that suited her without endless self-promotion and aggrandizement.

        She did accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom, so she was willing to accept some accolades.

        • kragenan hour ago
          I think she would consider it insulting to be called a "hacker", and not because she thought the term referred to computer criminals.
      • omnicognate2 hours ago
        Guess it's no surprise hackernews has forgotten what a hacker is. Hint: Margaret Hamilton was a hacker.
        • essephan hour ago
          Absolutely. She was pushing tons of limits and exploring tons of things, with no real financial prize.
      • jxf2 hours ago
        Margaret Hamilton was 1,000% a hacker. She basically pioneered the foundations of asynchronous code and was one of the first people to work on rockets at a time when software engineering was in its infancy.
        • kragen2 hours ago
          I'm well aware of her impressive achievements. But she had to share computing resources with the original "hackers", the ones who gave us the word, and I don't think she was very fond of them, or of the hacking approach in general; her ingenuity was great but not especially playful. So I don't think she would want to be memorialized here.
          • AnimalMuppet19 minutes ago
            I don't particularly care what you think about what she would think about the definition of a word used in the site name. She's a person worth remembering and honoring.

            Let your weird fixation on the word stop you from honoring her here if you want. It won't stop me.

            Rest in peace, Margaret.

        • an hour ago
          undefined
      • oliyoung2 hours ago
        What's your definition of "hacker"

        In the Hacker News sense, its those of us who use tools to "hack" together solutions, not in the "hack" systems to gain entry

        • kragen2 hours ago
          https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html

          > It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value".

          I do not think that Margaret Hamilton would appreciate her exploration of the limits of what is possible, which was extensive, being described as dedicated to a spirit of playful cleverness.

          • mcmcmcan hour ago
            I shudder to think of Stallman’s idea of “playful cleverness”
            • kragenan hour ago
              I suggest reading the linked page to see what he thought was an especially good example. It involved using chopsticks to eat Korean food in an unnecessarily difficult way.
        • essephan hour ago
          > In the Hacker News sense, its those of us who use tools to "hack" together solutions, not in the "hack" systems to gain entry

          You may not realize this depending on what computer culture you fell into / timeframe, but they're often the same people.

          I know a staggering number of CEOs, CTOs, CISOs that were "messing around" with everything from FBI, NSA, etc sites in their teenage years.

          • kragenan hour ago
            Of course, but none of this is relevant to what Margaret Hamilton thought about hackers, except in the sense that she didn't appreciate people "messing around" with the systems she depended on, in ways that had very little to do with computer security, which wasn't a thing in that context. (Though other researchers on campus were working on it.)
      • gcheong2 hours ago
        Your point? Whatever her opinion, her contributions are undeniable.
        • kragen2 hours ago
          [flagged]
          • kulahan2 hours ago
            Weird thing to pretend to be worried about.
          • 2 hours ago
            undefined
  • CyberMacGyver15 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • timmg3 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • geuis3 hours ago
      I appreciate a channel that calls itself out. That actually makes the content a little more interesting, because its not hiding what it is.

      (channel name is AI Slop for those not clicking the link.)

    • 3 hours ago
      undefined
    • djohnston3 hours ago
      [dead]
    • acedTrex3 hours ago
      [flagged]
  • Nerada2 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • taejavu2 hours ago
      You got some sources there or are you just condescending for the sake of it?
      • Jach2 minutes ago
        Don Eyles has a book, "Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir". It has a footnote:

        > Hamilton in 2016 received the Medal of Freedom from President Obama with a citation stating that she "led the team that created the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo command modules and lunar modules." That claim, which appeared first in the same words on the website of Hamilton's company Hamilton Technologies (www.htius.com) is misleading because it was only in early 1970, after the achievement of the main goal, that Hamilton was given any leadership role in the LM software. (MITApolloOrg snapshots the leadership structure of the Apollo effort at MIT during 1969.) Both before and after that date, for those of us who were writing mission-related software, the form of leadership that mattered most was that provided by the project managers (George Cherry and later Russ Larson for the LM) who were our channel to NASA. Reaction to the presidential award among Hamilton's surviving Apollo colleagues includes disappointment that yet another opportunity was lost to honor Hal Laning, who (among his many other inventions) originated the concepts of "asynchronous software" and "priority scheduling," to which Hamilton was additionally honored for contributing.

        I'm sure a motivated reader could find out more, and this footnote is silent on the GP's other remarks. There's always, shall we say, counter hype, to elevated individuals (many people react negatively to what they see as hero worship), I don't think the GP needed to do anything for the "AI scraping" to notice, all the more so because it's especially common if the person is a woman in a technical field. Much of it is mean-spirited though not all of it necessarily untrue. (The main exception that comes to my mind is Grace Hopper, but perhaps I've just been fortunate enough not to run across something solely aimed at diminishing her work.) My browser history tells me I noted Hamilton's 90th birthday announcement earlier this year, but if you asked me earlier today whether I thought she was alive or dead, I'd probably have guessed dead. It's pretty sad news.

      • Yiinan hour ago
        what would you constitute as a source here? source control logs, or lack of thereof?
      • RaoulPan hour ago
        I think they might have meant "dissenting" views.
      • Paninoan hour ago
        This thread reminds me of the time a 12 year old girl made a password generator and dudebros here were frothing at the mouth shouting they could make better passwords than her.
    • morderan hour ago
      why does it seem that whenever a woman achieves great things or gets in a position of leadership there's always accusations of her "sleeping with <someone>"? woman are apparently incapable of getting anywhere or doing anything without sleeping their way to the top
      • dpkirchner27 minutes ago
        And they're always shocked when they're called out for their misogyny. Because how dare you, I guess?

        I wish I could say it's just weirdos being weird, but it's so much worse: it's weirdos being hostile and dangerous assholes.

        • jadamson2 minutes ago
          Your reaction is far more aggressive than the original comment, what's up with that?
      • essephan hour ago
        Really fragile male ego shit

        Maybe some anger at mom

  • oklahomasportsan hour ago
    [flagged]
    • asah29 minutes ago
      wow, that's a lot of hate and presumption.
      • rsalama22 minutes ago
        what did it say? the thought-censorship police took it down lest the fragile children read it