Babbage boffin Ada Lovelace honored for computer science contributions

Penned Analytical Engine algorithm in her youth, imagine if she'd lived past 36

Today we remember Ada Lovelace Day, famed for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical computer, the Analytical Engine.

In 1843, Lovelace published what would now be recognized as a computer program to generate Bernoulli numbers and was the first to see the creative potential of Babbage's machine.

While there is some debate regarding Lovelace's status as the world's first computer programmer, her contribution is undeniable.

Lovelace's name was also adopted for the Ada programming language, which first appeared in 1980, with inspiration drawn from the likes of Pascal. While niche compared to popular modern languages, Ada has seen use as a teaching language and is often used in high-integrity and safety-critical domains, such as military-grade avionics and air traffic control systems.

As for the day honoring Lovelace, its goal is to increase the profile of women in STEM and encourage more girls into STEM careers. It has its work cut out. Despite improvements since the event's founding, inequalities and disparities in the IT world remain.

That said, things have improved over the years. There are more women in technology despite the antics of the "tech bros" who tend to conveniently forget the female pioneers upon whose work they are building.

Lovelace was born on 10 December 1815, the daughter of a mother who also enjoyed her math – Anne Isabella Noel, dubbed by husband Lord Byron as the "Princess of Parallelograms." Raised away from her father, Lovelace was tutored in mathematics potentially because of her mother's interest in it, but also purportedly to provide her with a "discipline" that would prevent her suffering the mental illness that afflicted Byron.

She excelled at math, with Babbage describing her as "The Enchantress of Numbers." Lovelace's potential was probably never fully realized – she died in 1852 at age 36.

Inspired by the Difference Engine when she first saw it in 1833, Lovelace subsequently worked with Babbage on the Analytical Engine, translating Italian engineer Luigi Menabrea's analysis of the machine, adding her own notes and observations.

Her Analytical Engine algorithm – to calculate Bernoulli numbers – has been described as the world's first computer program, although it was never tested in practice. ®