<div>fyi.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>:-)</div>
<div>Bettina<br><br>---------- Forwarded message ----------<br><span class="gmail_quote">From: <b class="gmail_sendername">John McCormick</b> <<a href="mailto:mccormick@cs.uni.edu">mccormick@cs.uni.edu</a>><br><br>
</span>On December 10, 1815, Anna Isabella (Annabella) Byron, whose husband<br>was Lord Byron, gave birth to a daughter, Augusta Ada. Ada's father<br>was a romantic poet whose fame derived not only from his works but
<br>also from his wild and scandalous behavior. His marriage to<br>Annabella was strained from the beginning, and Annabella left Byron<br>just a little more than a month after Ada was born. By April of that<br>year, Annabella and Byron signed separation papers, and Byron left
<br>England, never to return.<br><br>Byron's writings show that he greatly regretted that he was unable to<br>see his daughter. In one poem, for example, he wrote of Ada,<br><br> I see thee not. I hear thee not.
<br> But none can be so rapt in thee.<br><br>Byron died in Greece at the age of 36, and one of the last things he said was,<br><br> Oh my poor dear child! My dear Ada! My God, could I but have<br>seen her!<br>
<br>Meanwhile, Annabella, who was eventually to become a baroness in her<br>own right, and who was herself educated as both a mathematician and a<br>poet, carried on with Ada's upbringing and education. Annabella gave
<br>Ada her first instruction in mathematics, but it soon became clear<br>that Ada's gift for the subject was such that it required more<br>extensive tutoring. Ada received further training in mathematics<br>from Augustus DeMorgan, who is today famous for one of the basic
<br>theorems of Boolean algebra, which forms the basis for modern<br>computers. By the age of eight, Ada also had demonstrated an<br>interest in mechanical devices and was building detailed model boats.<br><br>When she was 18, Ada visited the Mechanics Institute to hear Dr.
<br>Dionysius Lardner's lectures on the "difference engine," a mechanical<br>calculating machine being built by Charles Babbage. She became so<br>interested in the device that she arranged to be introduced to
<br>Babbage. It was said that, upon seeing Babbage's machine, Ada was<br>the only person in the room to understand immediately how it worked<br>and to appreciate its significance.<br><br>Ada and Babbage became good friends and she worked with him for the
<br>rest of her life, helping to document his designs, translating<br>writings about his work, and developing programs to be used on his<br>machines. Unfortunately, Babbage never completed construction of any<br>of his designs. Even so, today Ada is recognized as being the first
<br>computer programmer in history. That title, however, does not do full<br>justice to her genius.<br><br>Around the time that Babbage met Ada, he began the design for an even<br>more ambitious machine called the "analytical engine," which we now
<br>recognize was the first programmable computer. Ada instantly grasped<br>the implications of the device and foresaw its application in ways<br>that even Babbage did not imagine. Ada believed that mathematics<br>eventually would develop into a system of symbols that could be used
<br>to represent anything in the universe. From her notes, it is clear<br>that Ada saw that the analytical engine could go beyond arithmetic<br>computations and become a general manipulator of symbols, and thus it<br>would be capable of almost anything. She even suggested that such a
<br>device could eventually be programmed with rules of harmony and<br>composition so that it could produce "scientific" music. In effect,<br>Ada foresaw the field of artificial intelligence over 150 years ago.
<br><br>In 1842, Babbage went to Turin, Italy, and gave a series of lectures<br>on his analytical engine. One of the attendees was Luigi Menabrea,<br>who was so impressed that he wrote an account of Babbage's<br>lectures. At age 27, Ada decided to translate the account into
<br>English, with the intent to add a few of her own notes about the<br>machine. In the end, her notes were twice as long as the original<br>material, and the document, "The Sketch of the Analytical Engine,"<br>
became the definitive work on the subject.<br><br>It is obvious from Ada's letters that her "notes" were entirely her<br>own and that Babbage was acting as a sometimes unappreciated editor.<br>At one point, Ada wrote to him,
<br><br>"I am much annoyed at your having altered my Note. You know I am<br>always willing to make any required alterations myself, but that I<br>cannot endure another person to meddle with my sentences."<br><br>
Ada gained the title Countess of Lovelace when she married Lord<br>William Lovelace. The couple had three children, but Ada was so<br>consumed by her love of mathematics that she left their upbringing to<br>her mother. For a woman of that day, such behavior was considered
<br>almost as scandalous as some of her father's exploits, but her<br>husband was actually quite supportive of her work.<br><br>In 1852, Ada died from cancer. Sadly, if she had lived just one year<br>longer, she would have witnessed the unveiling of a working
<br>difference engine built from one of Babbage's designs by George and<br>Edward Scheutz in Sweden. Like her father, Ada lived only until she<br>was 36, and, even though they led much different lives, she<br>undoubtedly admired Byron and took inspiration from his
<br>unconventional and rebellious nature. At the end, Ada asked to be<br>buried beside him at the family's estate.<br><br>In the 20th century, navy commander John Cooper honored Ada Lovelace<br>by naming the US Department of Defense's new programming language
<br>after her. Ada is perhaps the only language to have applied software<br>engineering principles to its design. After several years of<br>requirements gathering, William Whitaker's team produced four<br>generations of language specifications (strawman, woodenman, tinman,
<br>and ironman). The DOD then held a competition to design the<br>language. Cii Honeywell Bull of France led by Dr. Jean Ichbiah won<br>the final competition. For his accomplishments, Dr. Ichbiah was<br>awarded the Legion d'Honneur by the President of France.
<br><br>Since its first ISO standard was approved in 1987, Ada has evolved<br>with new standards in 1995 and 2005. Ada was the first<br>object-oriented language to have an international standard. Ada is<br>the language of choice in projects where failure is not an
<br>option. The safety critical software on board nearly every, high<br>speed train, aircraft, and spacecraft is written in Ada. Praxis High<br>Integrity Systems, the only company known to give unrestricted<br>warranties on the software they develop, work exclusively in a subset
<br>of Ada called SPARKAda. SPARKAda provides the means for proving that<br>software meets its specification. Replacing much of the laborious<br>testing of software with rapid mathematical proofs allows Praxis to<br>consistently underbid competitors using more mainstream but less
<br>precise languages. Praxis is currently developing the software for<br>the United Kingdom's new en-route air traffic control system. At an<br>estimated 1.2 million lines of code, it will be the largest software<br>
system ever formally verified.<br><br>The same feedback that Ada provides developers of mission-critical<br>software makes it easier for beginners to learn programming. The<br>stability of the language allows compiler writers to concentrate more
<br>on the human side of programming than on adding new features. The<br>GNU Ada Translator (GNAT) includes an expert system that analyses a<br>student's programming style and a database of previous students'<br>
errors to tailor its syntax error messages. Introductory programming<br>classes taught using Ada have consistently higher retention rates<br>than the more popular languages. Perhaps Ada Lovelace would be<br>pleased that her language namesake is particularly effective in
<br>retaining women in our profession.<br><br>The film "To Dream Tomorrow" from Flare Productions,<br><a href="http://www.flarefilms.org">www.flarefilms.org</a>, tells the story of Ada Lovelace and her<br>contributions to computing. I highly recommend it for your students.
<br><br>John<br><br> </div>