Have you read Lovelace’s notes on her translation of Menebrea? They are perceptive and foreshadow much of modern computing, including hints this sort of computer could become a universal machine.

https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/ada-lovelace-notes.h...

I understand your gripe. I myself thought Ada Lovelace was a brilliant thinker and mathematician but not a programmer and had little to nothing with even the early precursors of modern computing - at least compared to someone like Alan Turing or George Boole.

But she part of a long line of those special people with far seeing "eyes" and undeniable talent.

> Lovelace is a perfect mirror for our society: a vapid socialite with shallow understanding of the problems and a willingness to make grandiose claims without the ability to back them up.

Can you provide some more context to this? Given that I'm viewing everything related to heroism as problematic(and that includes Claude Shannon) I'd be curious to know more about the context of this statement.

EDIT: I have personally seen/witnessed and experienced plenty of environments where credit was given to those that brought solutions into writing rather than the ones who did all the work to bring things to fruition. So this is always of interest to me (it's also tightly related to the German saying: Wer schreibt, der bleibt/roughly: Only written proof counts)

I added some rebutals on a reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25998041

(Pointing there to avoid duplication)

You know there's a difference between a computer and a computer program, right?

The funny thing is that your low effort zinger is factually wrong. Something you'd learn in second year compsci:

>In computer science, a universal Turing machine (UTM) is a Turing machine that simulates an arbitrary Turing machine on arbitrary input. The universal machine essentially achieves this by reading both the description of the machine to be simulated as well as the input to that machine from its own tape.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Turing_machine

> Babbage was the first programmer seeing as he invented the first computer.

Einstein invented the theory that later went on to predict black holes yet Einstein himself didn't believe they were possible.

It's entirely possible to invent something and yet still underestimate the practical applications of it. Heck, the hacker culture and even a great many musical genres are based on people saying "this thing is cool, but what if we do this with it instead?"

> In short: if you are the type of person to think she had anything important to add to computer science you are the type of person to think Steve Jobs was anything but a snake oil salesman with a decent understanding of typography.

Lovelace and Jobs couldn't be more different. One was a socially revered individual who made millions selling other peoples work. And the other was mathematical genius who had a significant amount to contribute but society forced to work in the shadows because of her gender.

I'm not saying Lovelace didn't have her flaws. But dismissing her achievements as being Baggages is, ironically, akin to your complaint about Jobs.

Your "low effort" response proves that a computer program can be the same as a computer. Not what OP said.

I'll rely on the first hand accounts and correspondences of those who knew these people personally rather than yours, thanks.

Here are some of Ada Lovelace's notes on Menebrea's paper on Babbage's Analytical Engine: http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/ada-lovelace-notes.ht...

> Again, it [the Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine . . . Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.

Some AI generated music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA03iyI3yEA

> It is desirable to guard against the possibility of exaggerated ideas that might arise as to the powers of the Analytical Engine. In considering any new subject, there is frequently a tendency, first, to overrate what we find to be already interesting or remarkable; and, secondly, by a sort of natural reaction, to undervalue the true state of the case, when we do discover that our notions have surpassed those that were really tenable. The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with. This it is calculated to effect primarily and chiefly of course, through its executive faculties; but it is likely to exert an indirect and reciprocal influence on science itself in another manner. For, in so distributing and combining the truths and the formula of analysis, that they may become most easily and rapidly amenable to the mechanical combinations of the engine, the relations and the nature of many subjects in that science are necessarily thrown into new lights, and more profoundly investigated.

The second quote in particular was important for Turing later on: https://mindmatters.ai/2020/05/lovelace-the-programmer-who-s...

Back to your comment,

I believe Steve Jobs was a buisnessperson with a focus on design and Steve Wozniak provided most of quality engineering on the early years. I also like to bash Apple for a lot of stuff and I have never bought nor owned a single Apple product but recognize their early products as great and not snake oil.

So that is "anything but a snake oil salesman with a decent understanding of typography" and by modus tollens I am _not_ the "type of person to think she had anything important to add to computer science". Contradiction.

Also, it is no coincidence that the first programmer was working with the person building the first general computer (albeit neither digital nor electronic)

Thanks for providing details. I can think of many phrases for someone who writes careful notes about the promises of a newly-invented technology, but "vapid socialite" isn't one of them.

Is the claim here that what Ada Lovelace wrote is original to her and not Charles Babbage? To be specific: is the claim here that Lovelace saw in Babbage's invention something he himself failed to see and anticipate?

[please don't simply downvote. This is a sincere question. Do we know the answer?]

Yes, we do know the answer. We have many letters written by them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34243042

Thanks!