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The Curious Mind of Ada Lovelace

Posted by Soulskill on from the best-and-brightest dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Going beyond the usual soundbites about Ada Lovelace, Amy Jollymore explores the life of the worlds first programmer: 'When I heard that Ada Lovelace Day was coming, I questioned myself, "What do I actually know about Ada Lovelace?" The sum total of my knowledge: Ada was the first woman programmer and the Department of Defense honored her contributions to computation in 1979 by naming its common programming language Ada.
A few Ada biographies later, I know Augusta Ada Lovelace to be an incredibly complex woman with a painful life story, one in which math, shame, and illness were continuously resurfacing themes. Despite all, Ada tirelessly pursued her passion for mathematics, making her contributions to computing undeniable and her genius all the more clear. Her accomplishments continue to serve as an inspiration to women throughout the world.'"

17 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. She wasn't just the first woman programmer by mark-t · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's my understanding that she was the first programmer, period. Babbage was designing the machine, but Ada actually designed the first algorithms for it to run, when it was complete.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:She wasn't just the first woman programmer by hutsell · · Score: 4, Informative

      Linda Boreman, iirc, learned about Ada Lovelace in a computer class she was taking prior to becoming a porn star.

      --
      Yesterday's Weirdness is Tomorrow's Reason Why
    2. Re:She wasn't just the first woman programmer by EuclideanSilence · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The first computers were humans. There was no first programmer.

      In terms of being a pioneer of formalizing and proving a nontrivial algorithm from axioms, Euclid can't get enough credit for his work like computing greatest common divisor. He was like the Knuth of the ancient world.

    3. Re:She wasn't just the first woman programmer by haruchai · · Score: 3, Funny

      640k (neurons) ought to be enough for anybody

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    4. Re:She wasn't just the first woman programmer by BrokenHalo · · Score: 5, Informative

      For some reason I thought she was a porn star.

      I can give you one better than that, in the person of Hedy Lamarr, the actress famous for her beauty and also an outstanding mathematician who co-invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping. Sadly, she now seems to be most remembered for the faked orgasm in her 1933 debut film Ecstasy.

  2. Ok by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Funny

    "with a painful life story, one in which math [and] shame...were continuously resurfacing themes."

    Sounds about right for a programmer.

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    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  3. Byron's Abandoned Daughter by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's enough pain for any woman to bear, in the height of Victorian prudery. Her mother, Anne Isabella Milbanke, was spurned scandalously by Byron at the time - it is said for the affections of his own half-sister, Augusta. That Ada's actual first name was also Augusta, as christened by Byron, only additionally confirms some of the difficulty. Isabella was also an avid mathematical amateur. Byron dismissively abused her as "the princess of parallelograms" in correspondence with friends and colleagues, after the estrangement. When he embarked for the continent, to escape the scandal, he never saw the infant Ada again...

    Nor did he have further contact with the unfortunate Medora, his sister Augusta's daughter, who was evidently sired by Byron, roughly contemporary to the marriage with Isabella.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
    1. Re:Byron's Abandoned Daughter by Pseudonym · · Score: 3, Funny

      We call our act... the Byrons!

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    2. Re:Byron's Abandoned Daughter by Pseudonym · · Score: 5, Funny

      To children: Do you treasure discontent?
      With Nine Inch Nails should I impale my eyes?
      And should you copy me and my demise?
      My brain is limp, my mind to untorment
      I strive, however Girls of Spice present:
      With which to procreate my choice should be
      eludes me, and Physician Dre to me,
      believes my face effects of stimulant
      reveals. Since age of twelve, myself I did
      not feel, my humor hanged. Enraged, I tore
      the bust from Pamela, and smacking, skid
      her clothing rearward. Soft, come hither, whore!
      But no, dear Shady, please that phrase forbid,
      for she is mine, and I the world abhor.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  4. Just women? What? by Arker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Her accomplishments continue to serve as an inspiration to women throughout the world."

    Not to women, but to people of both sorts throughout the world.

    Who wrote this tripe? Oh, right, an AC.

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    Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
    1. Re:Just women? What? by Arker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're missing my point.

      I dont have to be gay to be inspired by Alan Turing. And I dont have to be female to be inspired by Ada Lovelace either.

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      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
  5. Inspiration just to women??? by gweihir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is incredible sexist. Mathematicians (and Computer Scientists) honor their great ones equally, gender does not play a role. A bit of digging finds a few female mathematicians that are in all respects treated as Mathematicians and honored for their discoveries, not for being (or not being) women.

    Maybe one reason why the gender-nonsense falls so obviously short here is that there is absolutely no gender component to the discoveries of these great people.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Inspiration just to women??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You added the 'just'. I suppose it's sexist in so far as reality is. The truth is that STEM fields are dominated by men and while that's changing, the women in those fields, especially the early ones are considered inspirational to women in the sense that they show that women too can make strides in these fields. Heck, in this case, she started the field. Nonetheless, she, like Madam Curie and others are considered role models to young women. It applies to race too. Regardless of policy, the fact that Barack Obama is president is inspirational to black people who now see that a black person can become president. Had Hilary won, the same would be true for women. As a white male, I find it odd, that other white males have such a hard time seeing things through other's eyes. I guess it's easy not to understand the lives of others when the world is run by others like yourself.

    2. Re:Inspiration just to women??? by blancolioni · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Are you feeling bad because your gender was ignored? That's ... adorable.

  6. Re:Still waiting... by Xtifr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nope, Lovelace was her title.King was her married name. And, because of the peculiarities of these things, "Lady" would be properly attached to "Lovelace" in this case, but not to "Ada" (or "Augusta"). So, Ada, Lady Lovelace would be one correct rendering, as would Ada, Countess Lovelace, or Augusta, Countess Lovelace (though she seemed to prefer Ada) or Augusta Ada King, (with or without added titles afterwards), but not Lady Ada or Lady Augusta, and not Ada Lovelace.

    At least, as far as I've been able to figure out. People more adept at the nuances of British nobility may be able to provide a more accurate assessment.

  7. Not the first programmer. by gumpish · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is an old canard that gets trotted out in an attempt to encourage more women to enter computer science and related fields. The ends may be noble but the means are fraudulent.

    Babbage wrote the first programs for his engine, which is a point even Lovelace's defenders acknowledge.

    1. Re:Not the first programmer. by harperska · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My understanding was that Babbage's own programs were more akin to today's Hello World in complexity, just as a proof of concept to show that his machine would work in the first place. Ada's program on the other hand was a complete implementation of an algorithm to compute a mathematical sequence (Bernoulli numbers) based on a mathematical formula provided by Babbage. So whether Babbage or Ada was the first programmer would depend on whether you consider Hello World to be a proper program or not.