The Curious Mind of Ada Lovelace

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.'"

Comments

She wasn't just the first woman programmer

[mark-t]

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.

Re:She wasn't just the first woman programmer

[BrokenHalo]

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.

Ok

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

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

Sounds about right for a programmer.

Byron's Abandoned Daughter

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

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.

Re:Byron's Abandoned Daughter

[Pseudonym]

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.

Inspiration just to women???

[gweihir]

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.

Not the first programmer.

[gumpish]

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.