Ada Lovelace, and how the first ever computer programmer was a woman

the first ever computer programmer was a woman. 

Ada Lovelace was just a teenager when she became infatuated with the prototype for the Difference Engine, a mechanical general-purpose computer made by Charles Babbage in the early 19th century. Maximizing this opportunity, she and Charles Babbage began to work together as close accomplices, and she soon was met with the Analytical Engine, a far more advanced rendition of the Difference Engine.

it took no time for her to begin to view the Analytical Engine like a friend, writing extensively about its incredible features and how amazing it was to exist. how incredible it was to Ada, that in a world where everything was so straightforward and shallow, something was brimming with life and energy, despite being merely an object. she just couldn’t make sense of it. she was infatuated with the possibilities.

as close accomplices, Ada Lovelace began writing algorithms for Charles Babbage’s machines. he had made a vessel, and she maximized it. because of this, Ada Lovelace is widely recognized as the first ever computer programmer, writing algorithms and programs for a computer one hundred years before the first hardware was even made. and though her work at the time was not widely known or acknowledged, when people had discovered her brilliance long after her death, she was crowned a legendary figure in the history of computing. 

“The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us to making available what we are already acquainted with.”

― Ada Lovelace, in her notes where she describes the Analytical Engine.

“The Analytical Engine might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine… Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”

— Ada Lovelace, in her notes where she describes the Analytical Engine.

the Analytical Engine had features that took ages for modern computers to get access to. basing off the Jacquard Loom, Ada Lovelace had programmed a system that took input from punched cards and performed a mathematical calculation. output came out in several different ways, printing results on paper rolls or punched cards, a curve plotter for graphs and a bell to signify completion. because of her brilliance, Babbage had nicknamed Lovelace the “Enchantress of Number.”

far more people need to recognize Lovelace for her excellence. especially in recent years, computing and programming has been considered just a man's job, and people tend to not acknowledge the extensive history between women and computers. 

i love Ada. she is literally me. i too am a teenage girl who's best friend is her computer.