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Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace

Posted by timothy on from the embroidered-or-not dept.

theodp writes: To commemorate the 200th birthday of Ada Lovelace, Google's CS Education in Media Program partnered with YouTube Kids on Happy Birthday Ada! for Computer Science Education Week. For those seeking (much!) more information on The Enchantress of Numbers, Stephen Wolfram has penned a pretty epic blog post, Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace. "Ada Lovelace was born 200 years ago today," Wolfram begins. "To some she is a great hero in the history of computing; to others an overestimated minor figure. I've been curious for a long time what the real story is. And in preparation for her bicentennial, I decided to try to solve what for me has always been the 'mystery of Ada'." If you're not up for the full 12,000+ word read, skip to "The Final Story" for the TL;DR summary.

3 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Difference Engine by vel-ex-tech · · Score: 4, Informative

    *sigh*

    The difference engine. Really? Seriously?

    Repeat after me: Ada Lovelace wrote a program for the Analytical Engine architecture.

    I'm sure Babbage's Difference Engine is fascinating, but it can't be programmed. The architecture you're looking for is the Analytical Engine. At least get the basics right.

    Here: A Sketch of the Analytical Engine. It has never actually been built, although I understand one of the mills almost was.

    The woman page. (That's a joke, son.)

    And finally, the table of contents in case I've missed something in my nerd rage.

  2. Re:Difference Engine by AntronArgaiv · · Score: 4, Informative

    *sigh*

    The difference engine. Really? Seriously?

    Repeat after me: Ada Lovelace wrote a program for the Analytical Engine architecture.

    I'm sure Babbage's Difference Engine is fascinating, but it can't be programmed. The architecture you're looking for is the Analytical Engine. At least get the basics right.

    Here: A Sketch of the Analytical Engine. It has never actually been built, although I understand one of the mills almost was.

    The woman page. (That's a joke, son.)

    And finally, the table of contents in case I've missed something in my nerd rage.

    In fairness, you can't go to see an Analytical Engine reconstruction., because there isn't one. So the best you can do is the Difference Engine, which, as you correctly point out, Ada had nothing to do with. It's still worth seeing. And it's in Mountain View, not Santa Clara...sorry, about that.

  3. Re:Hero? by mi · · Score: 4, Informative

    Engaging in an activity typically pursued by men and risking the wrath of the sperglords for doing so?

    Nonsense and bullshit. Wikipedia cites her biography thus, for example (emphasis mine):

    She was presented at Court at the age of seventeen "and became a popular belle of the season" in part because of her "brilliant mind."

    Somebody lied to you, honey. The "Victorian Britain", however much it is hated by the "progressive" teachers of yours, was not as bad as they were telling you.

    She happily married later and had three children with a loving husband.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.