Biography of Ada Lovelace, First Computer Programmer

On June 5, 1833, Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and "the first computer programmer", met Charles Babbage, "the father of the computer". From the article:

"In June 1833 Lovelace’s tutor, Mary Somerville, introduced her to British mathematician, philosopher, and inventor Charles Babbage, now widely considered to have been the “father of the computer.” As the two mathematicians began to develop what would become a lifelong friendship, Lovelace became fascinated with Babbage’s groundbreaking work on his mechanical calculating device, he called the Analytical Engine."

In 1842, Babbage asked Lovelace to translate from French into English a scholarly article on his calculating machine written by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea. Ada not only translated the article, but she also supplemented it with an elaborate analytical section she simply titled “Notes,” comprised of Note A to Note G. Lovelace’s seven notes, now revered as a milestone in the history of computers, contained what many consider to have been the first computer program—a structured set of instructions to be carried out by a machine. In her Note G, Lovelace describes an algorithm that would instruct Babbage’s Analytical Engine to accurately compute Bernoulli numbers. Today it is considered to have been the first algorithm specifically created to be implemented on a computer, and the reason Lovelace is often called the first computer programmer. Since Babbage never completed his Analytical Engine, Lovelace’s program was never tested. However, her process for having a machine repeat a series of instructions, called “looping,” remains a staple of computer programming today."