Re: [vox] The first programmer...

[Dave Peticolas <dave@kMAPSrondo.com>]

On Tue, 2002-09-10 at 17:07, Rod Roark wrote:
> On Tuesday 10 September 2002 05:02 pm, John McDonnell wrote:
> > It would appear that on Tue, 10 Sep 2002, Doug Huckaba did say:
> > > I heard that when learning ADA during by my time in the Army. Wasn't she
> > > Picasso's daughter or something??? (it was an artist I'm sure).
> >
> > nope... She was the daughter of British poet Lord Byron.
> > Also, I've seen suggestions that Babbage was the first programmer because
> > without his "analytical engines", she wouldn't have been able to program
> > and that he had programmed them before her.
> 
> You guys should really read the article.  :-)
> 
> Babbage himself never built a working Analytical Engine... 
> neither he nor Ada lived to see one.  Ada nevertheless
> wrote articles about it and programs for it, inventing
> concepts such as "if" statements, subroutines and looping.

For a good read, check out "The Difference Engine", by William
Gibson and Bruce Sterling, a niece piece of 'alternative history'
in which Babbage manages to build his mechanical computer and the
information age happens about a century early.

dave

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