F.E. (Betty) Holberton’s Master Two-Way Sort Generator for the UNIVAC was “one of the first major efforts in automatic coding” ([[proglang-src-petersen_automatic_1957]]).

It was “the first step to tell us that that we could actually use a computer to write programs” [[proglang-src-hopper_keynote_1978]]. It took a specification for data files and generated routines for sorting and merging. “[I]t contained, I think, what I would define as the first version of a virtual memory in that it made use of overlays automatically without being told to by the programmer. I think that meant a great deal to me. It meant that I could do these things automatically; that you could make a computer write a program” [[proglang-src-hopper_keynote_1978]].