Thanks, Hopper!

Poem

THANKS, HOPPER!

These are words.

 Were they made to be said and to use your ears to get into your head? 

Were they made to be taken to bed and then silently read? 

Were you meant to learn this tale with your fingers from braille? 

Were they made for an age where words get printed onto a paper page? 

Were they made to be seen on an electronic screen? 

If these questions seem strange to you, it’s because these questions are somewhat new. 

Learning how to walk and talk was a thing all our ancestors had to do. 

But learning how to write and to read, is a newer thing indeed. 

If you go back in time, you’ll find it was much harder to give someone a piece of your mind. 

At first if you wanted someone to come near it was hard to make it clear. 

You could motion with your hand, but they had to be able to see you to understand. 

You could ask them to come near but they had to be close enough to hear.  

Once words became things that we wrote, you could put up a handwritten note. 

You could leave it far from your camp, but too many notes and you’ll get a hand cramp. 

Once words became things we could print, paper notes were more easily sent. 

But you still must carry words made of ink, and paper can be heavy, don’t you think? 

Once words became things computers could read, they could be copied at even greater speed.  

But early computers weighed more than a horse, so to carry them would be hard of course. 

But digital words could travel farther and faster yet, with the rise of the internet. 

And with satellites high up in the air, digital words could travel almost anywhere. 

And with programs to help with translation, words could be read from nation to nation. 

Who helped us with all of this invention? There are far too many names to mention. 

Plus, some happened before written history, so their source is still a big mystery. 

But by teaching the whole world how to print, Gutenberg made much more than a dent. 

Because of him people would find, an easier way to share more of their mind. 

And there was so much more we could know, and our knowledge could rapidly grow. 

If you like the modern age that you’ve had, well Johannes Gutenberg was kind of its dad. 

And by teaching computers how to read, even more knowledge was freed. 

So, we shouldn’t ever forget, how the computer became literate.

Though this one my seem like a whopper, this modern world had a mom named Grace Hopper. 

When programming the first words I hurled, were the traditional ones “Hello, World!” 

But that tradition doesn’t seem proper. How about instead we now teach “Thanks, Hopper!”

To the extent possible under law, Edward Lee Croom has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Thanks, Hopper! . This work is published from: United States.

Thanks, Hopper! Programs

Python

print("Thanks, Hopper!")