Ada Lovelace created the first computer program in the 19th century, a time when women had little access to advanced education, let alone science. Ada saw enormous beauty in machinery and technology because she loved mathematics and poetry equally. She created a series of notes outlining how various tasks may be encoded into the device. Unlike her contemporaries, she emphasized the harmony between machines and humanity, making her one of the key innovators in the history of technological advancements.
Ada presented two ideas of historical relevance in her works. First, a programmable device, like the Analytical Engine, could perform tasks other than simple calculation (Isaacson, 2015). These devices could process not only numbers but also any type of sign, including text, music, and visual displays, essentially envisioning an imaginary computer. Her second consideration was that machines could not think, regardless of how widespread they were, therefore, the innovation and creative process would come from people (Isaacson, 2015). She is credited as being the first programmer since she created flowcharts for a sequential program that produced these figures, replete with subroutines (Isaacson, 2015). She claimed that machines could function on anything other than numbers, emphasizing the poetic nature of technological advancements.
Overall, Ada Lovelace is a true inventor thanks to her drive, technological prowess, and the ideas that inspired it. She had a more positive vision of the future than Babbage or Turing, one in which machines work alongside human inventiveness. While Babbage thought the only constraints on his computer were mathematical computations, Ada Lovelace saw a day when any piece of material could be digitized and employed in harmony with the human mind. Her passion and skills precipitated further innovations in the field.
Reference
Isaacson, W. (2015). The innovators: How a group of inventors, hackers, geniuses, and geeks created the digital revolution. Simon and Schuster.