The First Known Computer Programmer Was a Woman. In the 1840s, Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician, wrote the first algorithm intended for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, an early mechanical computer. Lovelace is considered the world’s first computer programmer.
Posted by Front-Coconut-8196@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 41 comments
nitkonigdje@reddit
Nah. She isn't programmer.
She did some algebaric reductions and io desing for Babage but is clear that:
A) the job wasn't programming in any shape B) the job was never done C) Babage was there first
First programmer, like world programmer number one, who actually produced work which would universally recognized as programming is Tom Kilburn.
The first program was memtest routine for a computer known as Manchester Baby in 1948. It was a "real general purpose computer" with ability to store both code and data in same memory.
Designs by Babage weren't that.
Western_End_2223@reddit
The ENIAC was the first electronic, programmable, Turing-complete computer. I would say that whoever wrote the first program for that computer, even if it was wired into place, would count as the first programmer.
nitkonigdje@reddit
Eniac wasn't programmed. It was wired into desired behavior. It also wasn't first of its kind.
Manchester Baby was truly first "moder design" of Turing complete computer with von Neumann design. And thus it was first programmable general purpose machine.
Western_End_2223@reddit
The ENIAC most certainly was programmed. The fact that the programming was done via wiring and that it didn't use a von Neumann architecture doesn't change that fact.
But, yes, I'll agree that the "Baby" was the first "modern" computer.
nitkonigdje@reddit
Rewireing hardware isn't considered "programming" act.
Eniac may be universal computer but it ain't "programmable" to an extent that Eniac users are "programmers". Skill set is completely different.
Now this is fight about word definitions, and given that we understand each other pov I'll end it here.
What Tom Killburn did can be find online, and it is unmistakably "programming" act and would be recognized as such by overwhelming majority of modern programmers.
Not as such with Ada and whoever maintained Eniac.
Western_End_2223@reddit
Who says that it isn't programming? The people who used the ENIAC developed the program sequences, including conditionals, necessary to do their calculations. The fact that these were implemented via changeable wiring panels instead of a more conventional memory doesn't alter anything.
dtatge@reddit
But memtest was written by a woman right?
bencos18@reddit
nope Chris Brady wrote memtest in 1994 iirc
dtatge@reddit
Exactly, Chris is a girls name
nitkonigdje@reddit
Memtest86? I really don't know that. Kudos to her if it is true.
hildenborg@reddit
Sound like a modern software developer to me.
nitkonigdje@reddit
Hell I never considered that 🤔
cosmicr@reddit
Why are you announcing "it was a woman" like is that meant to be shocking or something.
BritOverThere@reddit
Turned out that it didn't work. The Science Museum in London built the Analytical Engine and ran the program and it didn't work as two registers were swapped around during a division command.
conrat4567@reddit
Doesn't take away from what she did. The machine still "worked" and attempted to do what it was created for.
The same thing happened when they restored a steam engine years ago. The steam engine wasn't efficient at the time and the engineers in the 1800s and early 1900s couldn't work out why. During restoration, nearly 100 years later, they found the fault, and after some deliberation as to whether it would be a proper restoration, decided to fix it. This made the engine much more efficient and increased speed. That doesn't take away from the engineers at the time, who kept the engine running and built the thing
fantomacan_@reddit
https://www.juliansanchez.com/2012/10/16/much-ada-about-nothing/
unohdin-nimeni@reddit
If Charles Babbage hasn’t got anything to debug, Ada Lovelace indeed was the world’s first programmer.
mallardtheduck@reddit
The Science Museum only built Babbage's "Difference Engine No. 2", a vastly simpler, non-programmable mechanical calculator. They did build it with period-accurate materials and tolerances, which is believed to show that the full Analytical Engine would also have been technically feasible at the time. The Analytical Engine has only ever been simulated.
thunderbird32@reddit
Ah well, show me a developer who hasn't written a buggy program and I'll show you a liar, lol
RAW2091@reddit
Incorrect. The inventor of the machine she used was the first programmer. I even helped debunk this some years ago.
nitkonigdje@reddit
Incorrect.
The Babage didn't deliver. And his designes were not "computers".
fantomacan_@reddit
This one is true.
Analytical Engine could absolutely be described as a computer - it was a world's first design for a programmable computer.
It had;
If it were fully built, it would have been what computer scientists call Turing-complete, meaning it could theoretically compute anything a modern laptop can compute, given enough time and mechanical parts.
RAW2091@reddit
No considering Lovelace as the world’s first computer programmer is factual incorrect.
takeyouraxeandhack@reddit
The downplaying of Charles Babbage is astonishing. It's like people believe he didn't know he was making a computer. He travelled around showing the capabilities of the computer and how to program it, and hired her to do exactly that, so he could focus on the development of the machine.
You can't make a machine that interpret instructions without first visualising and designing how those instructions work, and for what. He had to invent the "programming language" and the "compiler" and try it on paper before even building the machine.
There are writings by Charles Babbage where he outlines different programs for his machine from years before he even met Lovelace.
And the algorithm used to calculate Bernoulli's numbers that is used to support the claim of her being the first programmer, is the exact same set of instructions Babbage wrote, except that it was translated to the instructions used by the machine... designed by Babbage.
First woman to be a programmer? Yes.
First programmer? Well... No.
nitkonigdje@reddit
He didn't deliver, and his machines while advanced weren't computers.
setwindowtext@reddit
Although unrelated, in the USSR computer programming was traditionally considered women’s job. To the extent that a state university faculty of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science was nicknamed “a faculty of lonely ladies” in the 80s and 90s. A breaking point came only around the year 2000, when it became a predominantly male profession. I’m speaking about Minsk, Belarus specifically.
cephles@reddit
It was the same in North America, and I've always found this very interesting. My mom took computer programming in university which is utterly fascinating to me because she can barely use a computer now. The thought of her programming something is almost impossible to imagine.
Most other women I know in the field are older. All the Canadian female programmers I know (aside from myself) are in their 50s or so. Interesting how the field had such a flip.
I have a lot of admiration for the women who were there at the start.
fantomacan_@reddit
Tbf, programming at that time was pretty different thing compared to today. We take for granted how much abstractions we have. Early programmers had to really understand machine to do their jobs.
Gsundenberg@reddit
Afaik that was the case world wide until programming languages emerged as binary coding was seen as tidious but simple and low skill labour usualy done by women
BudTugglie@reddit
Her great-great grandaughter Linda was also famous.
LittleBigCampus@reddit
Hi, just in case, I wrote an article about her a while ago, if the topic interests you!
https://go.littlebigcampus.com/lovelace
Yifkong@reddit
Crossword puzzle creators triumphantly pumped their fists in the air when she gained fame.
marmakoide@reddit
She wrote that when she was stuck on a problem, she would leave her office, and go for a long horse ride in the country.
Some things never change.
octetta@reddit
I was just in London and saw where she lived. It has a plaque mentioning her.
Kurgan_IT@reddit
At NASA during Apollo missions the most famous programmer was a woman, too.
CookiesTheKitty@reddit
Ada Lovelace is rightly celebrated but, in my view, never enough. I genuinely feel that I owe everything to her influence in one way or another, from the privilege of my 40-year IT career to the mobile phone I'm using to write this.
ziplock9000@reddit
Weirdo
Useful_Resolution888@reddit
Really? Why do you feel this? How much of an influence did she (or Babbage) have on, eg, von Neumann o'r Turing?
Techaissance@reddit
Oh and fun fact her father was famous poet Lord Byron.
Illustrious_Ant_9242@reddit
He named her after a rare programming language, ADA
Cross_22@reddit
https://www.juliansanchez.com/2012/10/16/much-ada-about-nothing/