Re: Re: Article on women and mathematics

["Hanna M. Wallach" <hmw26@cam.ac.uk>]

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Byron
> 
> is something you probably forgot to mention about early programmers ;)

I was somewhat surprised by that article. (I'll admit that I've never
read anything about Ada Lovelace until now, so perhaps if I knew more
about her I wouldn't've been so surprised.) Previously, I had been
under the impression that Ada Lovelace had, herself, been a
programmer; the article, however, claims that, "The evidence and
correspondence between Lovelace and Babbage indicate that he wrote all
of the programs in the notes appended to the Menebrea translation."
Furthermore, the article says, "Biographers have noted that Lovelace
struggled with mathematics, and there is some debate as to whether
Lovelace understood deeply the concepts behind programming Babbage's
engine, or was more of a figurehead used by Babbage for public
relations purposes."

-- 
hanna m. wallach
blog: http://join-the-dots.org/
work: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/hmw26/