Ada Lovelace wrote what is considered to be the world's first program between 1842 and 1843, as a footnote(!) to the translation of an article by the Italian Menabrea. Even then, modesty reigned supreme.
Did you know that Ada Lovelace was the daughter of Lord Byron? Her mother was so embittered at her husband for the scandalous life he'd led that she had Ada tutored exclusively in Mathematics in order to smother any poetic tendencies inherited from her father.
But it makes perfect sense that someone at the nexus of mathematics and poetry should be the first computer programmer. Truly excellent software is like poetry - elegant, lean, with not a phrase out of place.
1 comment:
Truly excellent software is like poetry – elegant, lean, with not a phrase out of place, and needing far too much time to finish.
Post a Comment