Colleagues recall Hamilton coining 'software engineering'
3 Oct 7 8:57 PM · 6d ago · 32 articles · 51 posts · 14 comments · 7 sources · development 3 of 7
A tribute post recounted Hamilton's own account of inventing the term 'software engineering,' which was initially met with skepticism before gaining acceptance.
“When I first came up with the term, no one had heard of it before, at least in our world. It was an ongoing joke for a long time. They liked to kid me about my radical ideas.”
Margaret Hamilton (quoted by DamienWise)Margaret Hamilton Computer scientist, led Apollo flight software teamOlivier de Weck MIT Apollo Program Professor, interim head of AeroAstro
Barack Obama Former U.S. PresidentLauren Hamilton's daughter
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What was reported 2 claims about this development
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first by GB News, 6d ago · also MIT News, Guardian Science, Guardian, Straits Times, Korben, Arab News +2
6 more headlines
- Margaret Hamilton, who led an MIT software team for NASA's Apollo program and helped establish software engineering as a discipline, died on September 30 at 90 MIT News · 6d ago
- Margaret Hamilton, trailblazer whose software powered Apollo 11 moon landing, dies at 90 Mastodon · 6d ago
- Margaret Hamilton, scientist who led NASA’s Apollo software development, dead at 90 Straits Times · 6d ago
- Margaret Hamilton has died, the programmer who saved Apollo 11 Korben · 6d ago
- NASA Apollo pioneer Margaret Hamilton dies at 90 Arab News · 6d ago
- Margaret Hamilton obituary: Apollo missions software engineer The Times · 6d ago
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first by HotHardware, 6d ago · also ITPro, The Sun, Gulf Coast News and Weather, WSJ, The Telegraph
5 more headlines
- Software engineering trailblazer Margaret Hamilton dies aged 90 ITPro · 6d ago
- Margaret Hamilton, woman behind software that helped land Apollo 11 on Moon, dies aged 90 The Sun · 6d ago
- Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo astronauts on the moon, has dies at 90 Gulf Coast News and Weather · 6d ago
- Margaret Hamilton, Who Developed Software for First Moon Landing, Dies at 90 WSJ · 6d ago
- Margaret Hamilton, pioneering computer scientist whose software code helped to send man to the moon The Telegraph · 6d ago
What people said 24 voices · best of 53 · verbatim
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This picture will always be iconic. RIP Margaret Hamilton who wrote the software that successfully guided NASA’s Apollo missions through the moon.
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Vale Margaret Hamilton. She was a Software Engineer. She was the _first_ Software Engineer because she defined the term, Software Engineering: "When I first came up with the term, no one had heard of it before, at least in our world. It was an ongoing joke for a long time. They liked to kid me about my radical ideas. It was a memorable day when…
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Related:Margaret Hamilton Led the NASA Software Team That Landed Astronauts on the Moon - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36720448 - July 2023 (32 comments)Margaret Hamilton oral history (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30668338 - March 2022 (7 comments)An interview with Margaret Hamilton -…
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Sort of. The real factor is that the people compiling the code were not the people writing the code. The people compiling code often wore lab coats or business attire/suits and worked in a somewhat sterile environment (by those standards). You would hand them a stack of punch cards/paper tape/printouts and they would tell you to come back when the…
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We've lost an icon. Margaret Hamilton, a computer science pioneer best known for her work at MIT leading development of the flight software for the Apollo missions to the moon, has died at 90. Read about her legacy via MIT News:
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Margaret Hamilton, who led the 100-person team that wrote the onboard software for the Apollo missions, has died.
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Legendary programmer and "rope mother" for NASA — RIP https://www. nytimes.com/2026/10/07/obituar ies/margaret-hamilton-dead.html
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Her story and her work is so inspiring. And I feel a bit sad reading about it...When I started working on this field I dreamt of working on things like that. Not sending anything to the moon, but code that would achieve difficult stuff, challenging tasks, things I would be proud of.Today I mostly do silly APIs, and with AI is worse and worse... I…
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It's not intended to drag anybody down. It's intended to add context and prevent inadvertent assignment of way too much credit to an individual. And in this case, she herself publicly reminded people of this point I made, so it's not like it's not something she didn't do herself... for the same reason. She wanted to ensure that the credit was…
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The very first Software Engineer ... Margaret Hamilton coined the term. RIP.
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WHAT a life!! Margaret Hamilton, who lead the 100-person team that wrote the onboard software for the Apollo missions, guiding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to a safe landing on the moon, died Sept. 30 in Cambridge, Mass. She was 90. Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her daughter, Lauren.
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RIP Margaret Hamilton. A true icon of Software Engineering and Computer Science. She led the engineering and programming work for the flight computer software used in NASA's Apollo missions that successfully landed humans on the Moon in the late 60s. There's very few people I've truly admired in my life, and she is without a doubt one of them.
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Her rise in popularity coincided with a Wikipedia effort to identify "overlooked heroes" in math and science.This post presents an alternative description of her career with support of primary sources:
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This from ibiblio would indicate there were at least four major modules: https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/ Material Apollo (CM AGC) Apollo (LM AGC) Apollo (LM AGS) Saturn Rocket (LVDC)Material CM AGC - command module, LM AGC - lunar module, LM AGS - lunar module abort (I think), and Saturn Rocket.
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Margaret Hamilton, the first female programmer hired to work on the Apollo project who ultimately led the 100-person team that guided Armstrong and Aldrin to a safe landing on the moon, dies at 90.
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RIP Margret Hamilton aka rope mother. Thanks for getting us to the moon. And she did it all without an LLM or even stack overflow. A true legend. https:// news.mit.edu/2026/margaret-ham ilton-computing-pioneer-dies-1007
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I am extremely sorry to hear of Ms. Hamilton's passing. I will be sure to tell my daughters in the morning. I told them a bit about her. They found the life size cardboard cutout at the Computer History Museum in Roswell, GA, very interesting. They love the Apollo section of the exhibit.
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Why didn't they just read the stderr console output? Is they stupid? (also, good username)
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Sad to hear of the passing of NASA legend Margaret Hamilton - year after year we had hoped that she would write a memoir talking about those pioneering days of space programming, and now she's gone, but her accomplishments will always be with us.
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RIP Margaret Hamilton. She was a superstar. https:// news.mit.edu/2026/margaret-ham ilton-computing-pioneer-dies-1007
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Hamilton invented the idea of error handling in software, and that error handling in the Apollo computer is why Buzz Aldrin was able to handle the error 1201/1202 in the minutes before the Eagle landed on the moon, instead of having to abort the mission.
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Thankyou for everything you contributed to computing and science as a whole. Personal hero of mine. Pour one out.
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May the mother of all of us software engineers rest in peace.
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I feel very sad. I always wished I could meet her and have a little talk. She'll be forever remembered thanks to that coolest badass picture of her. Om shanti!
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