She gave her name to one of the programming languages.
Ada Lovelace was born on the 10th of December of 1815 into a famous family: her father was George Gordon Byron, the great English poet. But she, unlike her father, did not make literature her profession. She found her vocation in mathematics: today, Lady Lovelace is considered the first programmer in the world. And she deserves it: she first studied under the guidance of the Scottish mathematician Augustus, and later, she became student and assistant to Charles Babbage, professor of mathematics in the University of Cambridge. Together, they laid the foundations of the theory that all programmers use today. She used to say about herself: “I swear by the devil that in less than 10 years I will suck a certain amount of life blood from the mysteries of the Universe, and in a way that ordinary mortal lips and minds could not do.
No one knows what terrifying energies and strengths lie still unused in my little flexible being.”
Many years passed before someone knew: according to the proprieties of the epoch, the aristocrat Countess Lovelace signed her mathematical works with her initials. And that was why only in many years the world heard that it was she who developed the first programs for Babbage’s computing machine and suggested the terms and concepts now widely used in the world of programming, such as subroutine, operating cell, loop. The world generously rewarded her for that: her name was given to the programming language developed by order of the US Department of Defense. Today, this language is used in Europe and the US for the development of complicated large-scale projects, and not only for the military sector.
