It's not quite clear what the first ever compiler was, since "compiler" is kind of a fuzzy category, but Rear Admiral Hopper might have given that credit to Betty Holberton.
>> in 1997, she received the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award from the IEE Computer Society for developing the sort-merge generator which, according to IEEE, "inspired the first ideas about compilation."
Whereas Hopper coined the term "compiler" and wrote the first one that's recognized as such:
Indeed. But A-0 isn't what we'd call a "compiler" today. It was a gradual evolution from Holberton's work (1948? 1949?) through A-0 in 1952, up to, say, 1957, when the first optimizing FORTRAN compiler was shipped, which is definitely what we would call a compiler today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Holberton
>> in 1997, she received the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award from the IEE Computer Society for developing the sort-merge generator which, according to IEEE, "inspired the first ideas about compilation."
Whereas Hopper coined the term "compiler" and wrote the first one that's recognized as such:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_compiler_constructi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-0_programming_language