Jinn of Quality and Risk

Another important woman in the history of computing, Grace Murray Hopper (née Grace Brewster Murray) was born in New York City on December 9, 1906. A mathematician and naval officer, she was a key developer of early compiler programs, sponsored the design of programming language COBOL, and is credited with coining the term "bug." 

Ada Home: On December 10, 1815, Anna Isabella (Annabella) Byron, whose husband was Lord Byron, gave birth to a daughter, Augusta Ada. ... When she was 18, Ada visited the Mechanics Institute to hear Dr. Dionysius Lardner's lectures on the "difference engine," a mechanical calculating machine being built by Charles Babbage. She became so interested in the device that she arranged to be introduced to Babbage. It was said that, upon seeing Babbage's machine, Ada was the only person in the room to immediately understand how it worked and to appreciate its significance. ... Ada is today recognized as being the first computer programmer in history. A modern programming language with its own interesting history was named Ada to honour Lady Lovelace. 

McKinsey was the central "consultant" at Swissair during the several years that led to the destruction of the Swiss airline. Their "work" cost Swissair about $60 million dollars — while it lost all profits, revenues, and assets. McKinsey is also well-known for having preached at Enron, and presented that company as a success to emulate, until the fall. Business Week: Many of the intellectual underpinnings of Enron came from McKinsey...

NYT: Now that United Airlines has filed for bankruptcy protection, the critical challenge facing the airline... is to find a business strategy that works. To that end, United has hired McKinsey... Why McKinsey? While Andersen helped cook the books at Enron, didn't McKinsey also play a key role in that massive failure? 

The Fishbowl: There have been calls from some quarters for a fully fledged macro system in Java. I think the chance of this escaping academic study and getting into mainstream Java is somewhere close to zero. One of the design goals of Java, like it or not, was to avoid dangerous or confusing features. Macros are, by definition, dangerous and confusing. They change the way the language works, in such a way that it becomes impossible to look at a piece of code and guess what it does. They're difficult to write correctly, and difficult to use safely. Ada was also designed, starting long before Java, without macros. Some (not all!) things people do with macros are better expressed (and checked and maintained) with enumerations, constants, and generics.