Computer Programming: From Ada Lovelace to Mark Zuckerberg
Do you take your smartphone everywhere Do you keep in touch with your friends using social media apps Do you have a hard time imagining life without aa the internet This lifestyle is possible because of computers and the programs that run on them The invention of the computer arose from the need to quickly process information to At its most basic information was processed by adding and subtracting numbers In the early 1640s Blaise Pascal invented a mechanical calculator and a manufactured it for sale The machine was known as the Pascaline Life Computing
Over time computing machines improved This was thanks to mathematicians and inventors such as Charles Babbage Ada Lovelace and Herman Hollerith However these machines were mostly mechanical In the mid-1900s electronic computers were developed This led to the need for programming languages and programmers Computer scientists including Grace Hopper Steve Jobs Tim Berners-Lee and Mark Zuckerberg made today’s computers and programs possible Many schools and clubs offer classes to teach kids about computer programming
1 chapter Programming Preview Charles Babbage was an English mathematician and inventor In 1834 he designed the Analytical Engine It was a calculating machine It could be programmed using cards with holes punched in them The positions of the holes provided information and instructions to the machine Babbage never finished building the Analytical Engine FUN FACT Nevertheless it is recognized as the first concept for a general-purpose computer For this reason Babbage is sometimes referred to as the father of computing English mathematician Ada Lovelace was Babbage’s student She had a deep understanding of the Analytical Engine In 1843 Lovelace translated an article about the Analytical Engine from French Punched cards were based on a system developed by French weaver Joseph-Marie Jacquard In the early 1800s Jacquard created a method of using punched cards to control the weaving pattern of looms Looms operated this way were known as Jacquard looms
into English Lovelace added her own lengthy notes to the work Her notes included an algorithm for programming the Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers This algorithm is widely considered to be the first computer program A portion of Babbage’s Analytical Engine can be viewed at the Science Museum in London
