Ada Lovelace, English mathematician, an associate of Charles Babbage, for whose digital computer prototype, the Analytical Engine, she created a program in 1843. She has been called the first computer programmer. Ada Lovelace Day, the second Tuesday in October, honors women’s contributions to scienc...
she understood that the analytical engine/mechanical computer could be used symbolically, way beyond the numerical calculations that babbage built it for.
she foresaw how powerful that could be. when she was dying (of ovarian cancer), she said i would give all the days i have left for just three days a hundred years from now.