

Lovelace's Leap - jgrahamc
http://blog.jgc.org/2011/09/lovelaces-leap.html

======
portman
James Gleick's new book "The Information" devotes an entire chapter to the
fascinating story of Ada Byron. I've read thoroughly about her life (we did,
after all, name our youngest daughter after her) but nothing makes her genius
come to life like Gleick.

[http://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-
Flood/dp/03...](http://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-
Flood/dp/0375423729)

It's on Kindle. Just go buy it now. The Ada stuff is in Chapter 4, location
1841. It won't disappoint.

~~~
drcube
Seconded. This book is great.

------
gatlin
I wish more young women knew about Ada Lovelace. She attempted to do something
entirely unprecedented and in her very short life understood the implications
of computing technology.

What's even cooler is that her program had no bugs.

~~~
bryze
My wife recently opened my eyes to the idea that the low rate of female to
male programmers is far more cultural than genetic. I found a link, in fact,
that speaks more to this:

<http://www.themarysue.com/women-programming-over-the-years/>

~~~
hugh3
It could perhaps be both cultural and genetic. Women are genetically
predisposed to prefer one sort of profession to another, and over the years as
programming has changed it has increasingly become one sort of profession
rather than the other.

Or to put it another way, many women love doing Sudoku puzzles. But if solving
Sudoku puzzles suddenly became economically productive and a huge market for
Sudoku-solving professionals suddenly sprung up, I bet the vast majority of
jobs in the industry would suddenly be filled with young men with limited
social skills but l33t Sudoku abilities.

Ada Lovelace had the good fortune to live when computer programming was a
drawing room game for well-brought-up young ladies.

~~~
microarchitect
Sorry this is just sexist. And people like you who harbor and propagate sexist
ideas like this are holding back our field.

Princeton's President Shirley Tilghman once said the following and I think
it's a fitting quote that speaks directly to people like you.

 _"There are 25 years of good social science that demonstrate the many
cultural practices that act collectively to discourage women from entering and
continuing careers in science and engineering. The research is overwhelming,
and it is there for anybody to see. On the other hand, the data that would
suggest there are innate differences in the abilities of men and women to
succeed in the natural sciences are nonexistent."_

~~~
ShardPhoenix
If you believe this idea is false, why do you need to label it as a taboo
thought-crime ("sexist")? (I didn't think that it was expressed in an
aggressive or especially irrational way, in which cases some criticism might
have been warranted).

~~~
microarchitect
_If you believe this idea is false, why do you need to label it as a taboo
thought-crime ("sexist")?_

Expressing false ideas is not without cost. We have generation after
generation of young women who are socially and culturally conditioned into
believing that they're are unsuited for careers in science and engineering.
The grandfather is another example of one the many insidious ways in which
this happens. As a result, I believe it's completely unacceptable to speculate
on these matters, _especially_ when all you have to offer are some sexist
opinions unsupported by data.

Furthermore, the labeling of the post as sexist is not a "taboo thought-
crime", it's a statement of fact. The OP is clearly claiming that young men
are better suited to succeed at programming today than women. What is this if
not "a chauvinistic belief in the inferiority of women?" [1]

[1] (sexist) male chauvinist: a man with a chauvinistic belief in the
inferiority of women

~~~
kevinpet
I presume that you will be around to cry foul every time someone claims women
are better at dealing with interpersonal relations?

It's a debatable empirical question whether men or women have any innate
advantage (or are statistically more likely to have an advantage) in any given
field. If the evidence points one way, does that make reality sexist?

Young men are better suited to succeed at professional football today than
women. What is this if not "a chauvinistic belief in the inferiority of
women?" Simple answer: it's an objective fact.

I find it amazingly unlikely that men and women are identically suited to
every type of work. Men and women have historically, on evolutionary time
scales, focussed on different types of activities.

You say "I believe it's completely unacceptable to speculate on these matter".
That is labeling something as an unacceptable thought. You're saying "I don't
care what reality it, my morality trumps reality." You are advocating creating
categories of taboo thought crime. I suggest you either reconsider the
implications of you views, or admit that this is what you are advocating.

~~~
microarchitect
_You're saying "I don't care what reality it, my morality trumps reality."_

I said I'm against unsupported speculation, not against data. We have plenty
of good reasons, supported by data, to believe that men make better
professional footballers.

I am not aware of any peer-reviewed study that shows men are better suited to
computer programming that women. What I said was that throwing around
speculation in the absence of data was prejudice and I stand by this.

I also did not make the claim that men and women are equally suited to every
type of activity. However, making the leap from "there might be some
activities for which men are statistically better than women" to "computer
programming is once such activity", _especially in the absence of evidence in
the form of rigorous peer-reviewed studies supporting your position_ , is
sexism.

 _That is labeling something as an unacceptable thought._

You're free to think what you want. However, I suggest that you examine your
thoughts closely and study whether there is any truth to them before posting
them on a public forum. I'm asking for honesty not thought-policing.

------
hsmyers
I seldom ever ask for 'citations' but in this instance the author makes a
sweeping claim about everyone missing the mark when it comes to Ada Augusta,
and then proceeds to quote the bulk of the existing work---none of which
'misses' anything. Color me confused...

~~~
andolanra
The author believes that calling Lovelace "the first programmer" is an
exaggeration, as it seems to imply that Babbage conceived of and made plans
for his engine without ever having considered programs for it. Even Wikipedia
says:

    
    
        Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as 
        the first algorithm intended to be processed by a 
        machine; as such she is sometimes portrayed as the 
        "World's First Computer Programmer".
    

On the other hand, the article asserts:

    
    
        Calling Lovelace the first programmer has always seemed
        a bit silly because surely Babbage would have written
        some programs for his machine. But recognizing her for
        "Lovelace's Leap" seems far more realistic.
    

So he claims that the depiction given by Wikipedia (among other sources)
misses the importance of her insight.

------
paulgerhardt
I believe the bit JGC quotes comes from Ada Lovelace's translation of Federico
Luigi's memoir on the Analytical Engine (which, as the story goes, she
supplemented with her own notes at the suggestion of Babbage). Am I mistaken
here?

Is it clear from primary sources whether this should be called Lovelace's
Leap, Luigi's Leap, or even Babbage's Bound?

~~~
breadbox
Yes, the quote in question comes from her notes. (IIRC, Lovelace's addenda are
actually longer than the original translated text. She had the advantage of
being friends with Charles Babbage.)

------
kemiller
There are some theoretical computer scientists and FP geeks who haven't made
the leap yet. ;)

~~~
andolanra
What do you mean? Numbers in functional programming? If you really want them,
I suppose you could implement them using the Church encoding.

Really, though, I'm surprised you'd want to consider doing it. These "numbers"
sound far too involved and elaborate for the lambda calculi and their
children. Better stick to the tasks functional programming was designed for,
like writing fixpoint combinators and being snide in comment threads. ;)

------
Jun8
<friday_flight_of_fancy> Ah, Ada, Ada! I wish I was born about 150 years ago,
to a wealthy family, near Bath perhaps, and get to first see you at an evening
gathering and thinking you're ravishing go over and strike a conversation, be
flabbergasted by the breadth of your ideas and intellectual prowess, be
hopeless enamoured with you. We would sit in your study and you would explain
to me, starry eyed, the marvelous future of these computing looms, how they
will change humanity and the universe. Maybe you wouldn't die so young then!
</friday_flight_of_fancy>

