Hopefully the title of the thread should be a person we all know in our fields.
My question is a strange one, but I really want to get some of your thoughts on the subject. Augusta Byron (more commonly referred to as Ada Lovelace) is regarded as the world's first computer programmer. We all know she worked along side Charles Babbage in the 1800s and created punch card cryptic algorithms to calculate poly-numerals, to be executed on the Analytical Engine.
I've been to the London Science Museum and it is an amazing piece of hardware - it's massive!
Anyway, back on topic, I was having a discussion with some of the peeps I work with and they seem to agree with many of the theo-logists of that time and even our time that she was not the first programmer - and it was somebody else. I cannot prove nor can I disprove this theory, as all we have is what history has left behind. Is their any substantial proof that she was the first programmer?
I have seen pictures and of her Analytical Engine program and even her personal notes prove she was a total genius for that period of history. I would just like the "rumor" to rest beside her in Cyber Space.
Thoughts?