Do you know who was the first female programmer in the world?
She was Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, a Romantic poet and an accomplished mathematician in 19th-century England.
Ada was the founder of the computer program and the first programmer in history.
Original family
Her parents were aristocrats, with good talents and education. However, shortly after Ada was born, her parents divorced.
Ada’s mother receive a good education since childhood. She studied mathematics and astronomy with the famous thinker William Fred. So Ada’s mother let Ada learn logic, science, and mathematics from an early age. Ada’s curriculum is varied, which makes her show great interest in many phenomena in nature during her studies.
In 1835, at the age of 20, Ada married a young aristocrat named William King. He once taught her math. After her husband was crowned Count of Lovelace, Lady Ada King became Countess of Lovelace.
Due to Ada’s identity and educational background, she was able to meet some of the most famous scientists and celebrities in society at that time. Such as mathematician and engineer Charles Babbage, mathematician Sir David Brewster, inventor Charles Wheatstone, physicist Michael Faraday, writer Charles Dickens, etc. They particularly appreciated the smart girl and were willing to teach her everything they knew. Ada Lovelace was also awarded the title of “Queen of Mathematics“.
The first female programmer in history
Ada has a wide range of interests, including subjects related to how the brain thinks, such as craniology and hypnosis.
After meeting Babbage, Ada soon became interested in the analysis machine project Babbage was studying. From 1842-1843, she translated an article by Italian military engineer Federico Luigi on the analysis machine and added detailed notes. This note contains a huge chart full of mathematical algorithms, which is regarded as the “first computer program”.
Ada introduced how to create code for Babbage’s analyzer to handle letters, symbols, and numbers, and created the concept of loops and subroutines. Ada’s note is one of the most important documents in the early history of computer development. It shows a vision beyond the times
A new computer programming language - Ada.
Ada died at the age of 36 on November 27, 1852.
In 1953, one hundred years after Ada’s death, her research notes on “Introduction to Analytical Machines” were republished. On December 10, 1980, the United States Department of Defense produced a new computer programming language – Ada.
Of course, there are still many significant contributions by women to the computer industry. Six women completed the compilation and deployment of the world’s first computer ENIAC.
Therefore, it is not only boys who can program. Girls are also very suitable for learning programs.
