Three years late, but still deserving.


I suppose that there's a certain amount of poetic justice in the fact that three years ago I acknwoledged Charles Babbage's birthday, never mentioning anything about Ada Lovelace, and I'm only now getting around to commemorating her death, on this day, in 1852. (Yes, some sources give December 27 as the date of her death, but I'll stick to those that tell me it's the 29th, as though it really matters.)

Charles Babbage gained fame for his Difference Engine and Analytic Engine, and there's no doubt that a great deal of credit for these truly should go to him. Fitting for our times, however, the woman behind the man has received more and more attention, righting wrongs, or at least oversights, that more patriarchal times committed. Thus, biographies often tell us (here's one, and here's another, and here, yet another) that Ada Lovelace was actually the brains behind these inventions, or at least played an equal part. The recognition she has received today includes web sites and programming languages, and more, named after her. She undoubtedly deserves it.



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