The Story of the First Programmer

Early days of computing can be traced back to the abacus five millennium ago, and of course to countless great minds along the way such as Greek mathematician Archimedes (287 BC) and his accuracy principles, Iraqi mathematician Al-Kindi (801 AD) and his contribution of cryptanalysis but let’s fast forward to the more “modern times” of the 18th century and meet Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer.

During the height of children being forced factories instead of going to school in pre-industrial society, very few Londoner children had access to an education. Lady Ann Byron, married and separated from poet and nobleman Lord Byron, was a well-educated Victorian woman who had her daughter tutored by the likes of social reformer William Frend and Scottish astronomer Mary Somerville, a woman who would later become known as “the queen of 19th century science”.

Lady Byron was what you would call a “strict mother”, insisting her daughter study the disciplines in science, avoiding the romantic path her father was known to have taken. In short, Lady Byron didn’t want her daughter becoming a “mad poet”. And she succeeded.

Charles deemed Ada’s work so impressive, he asked her to help him translate an article that had been written on the analytical engine. She began adding her own notes, tacking on so many that her notes soon became bigger than the original article itself. Some of her observations were the way codes could be used to help a machine go beyond numbers to handle letters as well. She also imagined a process where a device could repeat a series of instructions.

Both of these observations are essential in today’s computer programming processes, which gave Ada the reputation of becoming known as the first computer programmer. Her writings were published in an English science journal under initials, hiding her identity for many years.