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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:Hero? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To some she is a great hero in the history of computing

    All respect to women, programmers, engineers, and human-beings in general notwithstanding, don't you need to have undertaken something dangerous to qualify for the term "hero"? Especially "great hero"?

    The dictionary definition mentions "exceptional courage and nobility and strength"...

    The dictionary definition does not specifically say one must exhibit all three characteristics to be e hero. Strength of character. Strength of the mind. Courage to take a path less travelled. Courage to explore a field of knowledge in which you might not represent to majority. There are plenty of interpretations. It is not restricted to brutality on the battlefield nor the sports venue.

  2. Re:Hero? by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And these travails of a sexually confused person have what to do with Ada Lovelace? You do know, she happily married and had three children?

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  3. Re:Stephen Wolfram's Blog by shoor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is one of those times when I actually RTFMed.
    I agree there was self-promotion, but Wolfram has the chops to really digest and understand the Victorian era style and necessarily rough first casting of novel ideas. Plugging through all that documentation couldn't have been easy, and it's not like the guy doesn't have other things to do, so he deserves some kudos in my opinion.
    Wolfram may have been serving himself, but he also served Ada and Charles Babbage, and that makes it worth reading.

    --
    In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)