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"one of the first" - not the first - if you consider her translation and notes to be a computer program
[[Image:Ada 1838.jpg|right|thumb|200px]]
[[Image:Ada 1838.jpg|right|thumb|200px]]
'''Ada Lovelace''' is widely credited as "the first computer programmer"<ref name="sciam">[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Ada_and_the_First_Computer.pdf Scientific American, May 1999, pp76]</ref>, though there are diverse opinions on this, since the computer had not yet been invented. The claim arises from the fact that she was first to publish a paper (in 1843) containing a mathematical algorithm ''encoded for the purpose of being executed by an automatically controlled digital computer''. That computer was the "analytical engine" designed by [[Charles Babbage]]. It was never built, because Babbage's design was way ahead of its time. The program calculated [[Bernoulli numbers]]. (Babbage undoubtedly also wrote some "code" as examples for the analytical engine, but it wasn't published, and it didn't perform a recognizable function.)
'''Augusta Ada Byron''' (1815-1852) studied [[Charles Babbage]] plans for the [[Analytic Engine]] and with Babbage and others wrote out some computational algorithms intended to run on it.
Although modern feminists have presented her as "the first computer programmer"<ref name="sciam">[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Ada_and_the_First_Computer.pdf Scientific American, May 1999, pp76]</ref>, there are diverse opinions on this. For one thing, the computer Babbage conceived had never been built.
The argument rests on the claim that she was first to publish a paper (in 1843) containing a mathematical algorithm ''encoded for the purpose of being executed by an automatically controlled digital computer''.
* In October of 1842 Luigi Federico Menabrea (1809-1896), an Italian professor of machanics at University of Turin (and later premier of the Kingdom of Italy), published a paper describing the function and theory of Babbage's Analytical Engine.
* Ada translated the paper from French to English and added her own extensive comments. (See ''Science and Reform, Selected Works of Charles Babbage'' by Anthony Hyman.) This was published in 1843 and impressed Babbage for it included, as Babbage himself wrote,
some complicated programs of her own, the most complex of these being one to calculate the sequence of Bernoulli numbers. For this reason she has earned the reputation for being the first computer programmer. (Though, of course, Babbage and others also had written “programs” for the never completed Analytical Engine.) [http://www.cs.fit.edu/~ryan/ada/lovelace.html]
That computer was the "analytical engine" designed by [[Charles Babbage]]. It was never built, because Babbage's design was way ahead of its time. The program calculated [[Bernoulli numbers]]. (Babbage undoubtedly also wrote some "code" as examples for the analytical engine, but it wasn't published, and it didn't perform a recognizable function.)
Ada had to write the algorithm on paper, rather than at a keypunch or computer terminal, of course. But she actually, to use modern terminology, "wrote code". Also, since the term "program" had not been coined, she described her algorithm as a "plan". In the 20th century, the program was carefully analyzed and simulated, and found to have a minor "bug". In 1983, a team of researchers at United States Department of Defense designed a computer language named '''Ada'''. It is not widely used.
Ada had to write the algorithm on paper, rather than at a keypunch or computer terminal, of course. But she actually, to use modern terminology, "wrote code". Also, since the term "program" had not been coined, she described her algorithm as a "plan". In the 20th century, the program was carefully analyzed and simulated, and found to have a minor "bug". In 1983, a team of researchers at United States Department of Defense designed a computer language named '''Ada'''. It is not widely used.