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Ada Lovelace and the Analytical Machine

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Out of all the people that interest me in programming, by far I’ve always been fascinated with the story of Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the poet Lord Byron. For all who don’t know, she is considered the first programmer because of her work with Charles Babbage’s analytical machine, which is considered to be the first programmable computer (no, it’s not the calculator or the abacus). The machine itself was an interesting contraption of gears and levers that worked purely on mechanical ability and not electricity as today’s computer. But the most amazing thing about this ‘computer’ is that it could be fed code, simple but real programs, and could actually output a result! And this machine is from the 1800s! For Ada to be able to pioneer the first programs with just this type of machine, it leaves me a bit awestruck. As an interesting side note, the government named their Ada programming language after this very same Ada further proving that occassionally the government does do something right.

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