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What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

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Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

#111

Post by pikminguy »

Jensson wrote: post #92
kergonath wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lovelace's program was a note in some documents that she was preparing under Babbage's directions as a scribe of sorts It was not the case. She was translating someone else’s article, and it does not seem she did it under direction or supervision. > so many people assume it was her work and not Babbage's. What she did was quite common. She had ideas about the thing she was translating and thus added them as notes.…

> To me the obsession that some people (not you, but some definitely do and use the same arguments) have with bringing her down is entirely ideologically motivated There really aren't more of those than there are people trying to give more credit to those women than there is evidence for. In the end there are foul play from both sides, but currently one side is dominating academia so there is much more need to argue…

>There really aren't more of those than there are people trying to give more credit to those women than there is evidence for.

That doesn't line up with my life experience at all. Do you have any evidence to support that assertion?

Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

#113

Post by peeters »

rchervot wrote: post #103
suzzer99 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a developer write his own System.out.println in Java. But it wasn't because he didn't like the built-in System.out.println, it was because he didn't know it existed. He had a PhD and was supposedly a senior developer. He didn't last very long.

I believe it was System.out.printf not System.out.println

To be fair that was quite a late addition to the language all things considered. It could be he learned Java before it existed, or had most of his experience in 1.4 (which survived quite long in some environments because 1.5 was such a huge overhaul). But still, a good dev will keep up to date with language features.

Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

#114

Post by bluGill »

countrymile wrote: post #86

Great article, does anyone have a breakdown of the programs babbage wrote? It always seemed odd that Lovelace was the first programmer, suggesting Babbage created a machine without thinking how his it could be used.

Lovelace seems to be the first to use loops. Babbage clearly created something first, but without any looping they were by nature much less complex, and so you could make an argument they don't count as programs ("hello world" would only count as a program because the library print function is likely to have some loop in it by this argument). Of course not all of Babbage's programs survive, it is entirely possible Babbage did have loops in some earlier programs that Ada knew of when she wrote her programs. Ada had much correspondence with Babbage, so it is possible she wrote programs before the ones we know of, but they are lost as well, who knows. Bottom line Ada and Babbage were working together (though countries apart) and so would have been thinking about what this new thing could do while it was in design the phase.

You can make whatever argument you want about first programmer. Ada was a smart person who clearly understood what this machine could do and had visions of the future of this machine. Even if you decide she wasn't actually the first programmer she is worth knowing about as an early pioneer.

Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

#115

Post by shermantanktop »

bluGill wrote: post #112

Ada Lovelace had the wisdom to die before computers that could run her programs were invented thus saving herself from having to debug her own code.

The XKCD engineers sword-fighting on the chairs could offer that as an excuse I guess…

Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

#116

Post by shermantanktop »

Jensson wrote: post #92
kergonath wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lovelace's program was a note in some documents that she was preparing under Babbage's directions as a scribe of sorts It was not the case. She was translating someone else’s article, and it does not seem she did it under direction or supervision. > so many people assume it was her work and not Babbage's. What she did was quite common. She had ideas about the thing she was translating and thus added them as notes.…

> To me the obsession that some people (not you, but some definitely do and use the same arguments) have with bringing her down is entirely ideologically motivated There really aren't more of those than there are people trying to give more credit to those women than there is evidence for. In the end there are foul play from both sides, but currently one side is dominating academia so there is much more need to argue…

If you believe that all arguments must be evenly matched, to the point that you have an obligation to bolster the weaker side, you’re signing up for supporting some despicable ideas.

I understand and support steel-manning arguments in order to test one’s own convictions. But applied in actual debates with actual consequences, at some point you end up as the kneejerk contrarian that nobody takes seriously, and that undermines the truth seeking aspect of discussion.

Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

#117

Post by rad_gruchalski »

rchervot wrote: post #103
suzzer99 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a developer write his own System.out.println in Java. But it wasn't because he didn't like the built-in System.out.println, it was because he didn't know it existed. He had a PhD and was supposedly a senior developer. He didn't last very long.

I believe it was System.out.printf not System.out.println

And everyone had a laugh until String.format became a thing?

Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

#118

Post by nobleach »

suzzer99 wrote: post #64
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an employee like that. He'd want to do something, and hit a roadblock, so he'd design his own tool (He wrote his own font, once, because he didn't like the way the built-in ones worked at teeny point sizes). Best damn engineer I ever knew, but I had to keep an eye out for rabbitholing.

We had a developer write his own System.out.println in Java. But it wasn't because he didn't like the built-in System.out.println, it was because he didn't know it existed. He had a PhD and was supposedly a senior developer. He didn't last very long.

I once worked with a dev that implemented his own forEach in JavaScript. And literally used an ECMAScript version 6 feature to do so! (native forEach in JS showed up in ECMAScript 5) Meanwhile, that project already had jQuery and Underscore... which also had their own versions of forEach! It was a bizarre choice.

Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

#119

Post by rsynnott »

jcranmer wrote: post #16
StableAlkyne wrote: post #3

> The Difference Engine was not a computer, because all it did was add and subtract. The definition of computer is pretty grey for the pre-digital era, and it wasn't turing complete, but is it actually controversial whether it was a computer?

That the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine belong on the timeline of computing history isn't particularly controversial, but the Difference Engine itself I've never seen anyone try to claim was a computer (it's a mechanical calculator)--the Wikipedia page doesn't even try to link it directly to the history of computers, you have to go to the Analytical Engine to see the Difference Engine's place in the "history…

To confuse the issue, though, at one time it was somewhat common to call fixed function calculators like this ‘computers’.

Re: What did Ada Lovelace's program actually do? (2018)

#120

Post by digging »

jonahx wrote: post #98
coldtea wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, isn't the main point of computers as tools (as opposed to consumption devices) the automating of “long and arid computation"?

I wasn't saying it's bad or untrue necessarily. Just funny how the same thing is said while the goalposts keep moving, buttressed by this vague, unspecified notion of "the real creative work" or "the things only humans are good it". And with current LLMs, and the spectre of even greater automated intelligence, our sphere of unique ability shrinks.

> more advanced thinking

does not imply

> vague, unspecified notion of "the real creative work" or "the things only humans are good it".

It's just true that increasingly advanced tools enable increasingly advanced work.

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