Augusta Ada Byron

[Lost User]

Didnt her sister write Frankenstein? But yes, first programmer of the first computer, Babbages mechanical device circa 1850 or some such. Actually an amazing machine: http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/engines/[^] "The Analytical Engine has many essential features found in the modern digital computer. It was programmable using punched cards, an idea borrowed from the Jacquard loom used for weaving complex patterns in textiles. The Engine had a 'Store' where numbers and intermediate results could be held, and a separate 'Mill' where the arithmetic processing was performed. It had an internal repertoire of the four arithmetical functions and could perform direct multiplication and division. It was also capable of functions for which we have modern names: conditional branching, looping (iteration), microprogramming, parallel processing, iteration, latching, polling, and pulse-shaping, amongst others, though Babbage nowhere used these terms. It had a variety of outputs including hardcopy printout, punched cards, graph plotting and the automatic production of stereotypes - trays of soft material into which results were impressed that could be used as molds for making printing plates. " I mean wow, just wow! :wtf:

============================== Nothing to say.

[Septimus Hedgehog]

And her sister, Linda, made some very fine movies. ;)

If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

[Joe Woodbury]

I did some reading on this a few months ago and was persuaded by the evidence that her contribution was very minor at best. Regardless of her contribution, it is indisputable that Charles Babbage was the first "programmer."

[jschell]

d@nish wrote:

Some believe she was World's first programmer and some do not.

And someone was the first to effectively use fire as well. But neither has anything to do with how it is used now.

[BillWoodruff]

"Many, not conversant with mathematical studies, imagine that because it [the Analytical Engine] is to give results in numerical notation, its processes must consequently be arithmetical, numerical, rather than algebraical and analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine numerical quantities as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and it fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly." Augusta Ada King, Countess Lovelace, 1844 Countess Ada was the only legitimate child of the Poet Lord Byron, but never knew her father, who abandoned the family a month after Ada was born, and expatriated himself to Europe, returning, eight years later, as a corpse. She was famous in her life for her mathematical skills, often referred to as "Princess of Parallelograms." There's strong evidence that Countess Ada had a broad view of computation beyond that possessed by Charles Babbage. Case in point: her diagram for the computation of Bernoulli numbers on the Analytical Engine, which many consider the first encoded computer algorithm:[^]. yrs, Bill

“Humans are amphibians: half spirit, half animal; as spirits they belong to the eternal world; as animals they inhabit time. While their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imagination are in continual change, for to be in time, means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy is undulation: repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.” C.S. Lewis

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[Gary Wheeler]

So, the only thing that matters is what has happened in the last twenty minutes or so?

Software Zen: delete this;

[qingteng1983]

great woman, although I can't understand how she did coding and what she programmed before computer was maked.

[qingteng1983]

Usually, people regard her as the first "female programmer", I agree with you that maybe her contribution was very minor, but she was very special in computer history, so a language was named after her.

[dbrenth]

Quote:

Didnt her sister write Frankenstein?

No. Mary Shelley was the stepsister of one of Ada's father's (Lord Byron's) mistresses -- with whom he had children - so Mary Shelley would have been a "round about" aunt.

Brent

[johannesnestler]

... my daughter's name is Ada :cool::omg: :cool:

[Member_5893260]

I think she was the world's first programmer. I read somewhere (which means I'm unable to find the reference right now) that someone tried running her programs on a virtual analytical engine, and it turns out that they're pretty much bug-free -- impressive considering she had no hardware to try them on and had to work it out entirely by hand.

[jwbasham]

It follows in that same concept where the study of computer science actually has nothing to do with computers, simply what could be done with computation of data.

[jschell]

Gary Wheeler wrote:

So, the only thing that matters is what has happened in the last twenty minutes or so?

I didn't say that. But just as obviously steel (whose origins are fire) cannot be discussed meaningfully in the same conversion as how one starts a fire with a hand bow.

[DarthDana]

I'm not sure where I stand on this. According to Babbage it looks like she did most of it. From Wikipedia: Babbage published the following on Ada's contribution, in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864):[73] "I then suggested that she add some notes to Menabrea's memoir, an idea which was immediately adopted. We discussed together the various illustrations that might be introduced; I suggested several but the selection was entirely her own. So also was the algebraic working out of the different problems, except, indeed, that relating to the numbers of Bernoulli, which I had offered to do to save Lady Lovelace the trouble. This she sent back to me for an amendment, having detected a grave mistake which I had made in the process."

[Joe Woodbury]

According to the original letters, however, Babbage's "suggestions" were pretty much everything Ada wrote back. In other words, her selection was literally that; like picking the answer a multiple choice question, though by all reports she did find a problem IN BABBAGE'S "code" (That's one thing that makes it glaringly obvious to me.) My larger argument, however, is that in order for Babbage to test his first machine (and even design the second) he HAD to write programs for it, ergo he was the first "programmer." (Though it should be pointed out that Babbage built his invention based on the work of others so even that claim is arguably dubious in absolute terms--it simply observes that between Babbage and Lovelace, Babbage was first.)

[RafagaX]

God was the first programmer... ;P But I consider that she was the first human programmer... :)

CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...