Talk:Ada Lovelace/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Archive 2

First computer program

Someone should find a link to her notes. If this is the first computer program it would be very interesting to read. — [Unsigned comment added by 38.113.183.93 (talk • contribs).] 14:16, 9 March 2010

Here's a link to a copy of the 1843 program which calculates Bernoulli numbers. I have contacted the people at Fourmilab.ch to see if I can get permission to upload this image of the first computer program to Wikipedia. It is historically significant, even though it is a translation from French.

[1]

Trying to decipher this table, as a modern programmer, can be difficult, unless you ignore some of the clutter at first, since there's a lot of redundant information.

I think it's important that, eventually, a modern Wikipedia article is written that compares this 150 year old computer program to a modern programming language, in modern terminology, to help a typical computer programmer (with some mathematical experience) understand what is going on in the 1843 'program'.

The first 4 columns ("Number of Operation", "Nature of Operation", "Variables acted upon", "Variables receving results") as well as the 3 data variable columns ("1V1", "1V2", "1V3"), is the actual "computer program".

The first column is akin to a line number (line #1 may actually be 3 lines, because we need to store to 3 variables)

The second column describes the main instruction (modern assembly language equivalents: ADD, MUL, DIV, SUB)

The third column describes which variable pair (register pair) to execute the operation on

The fourth column describe which variable (register) receives the result

Diagram has a set of data variables, working variables, and result variables.

There's a loop, from line number 13 through line 23. The loop is triggered via a condition check.

The three data columns (1V1, 1V2 and 1V3) are variable assignments, each value is akin to modern assembly language 'MOV' instruction where a number exists.

The "Statement of Results" is akin to just program comments of what the row does, since the 'microcoded' operation is already documented in the first 4 columns, with the sole exception for the condition check which appears to be indicated in parantheses in line 7, 12 and 23 of the column of "Statement of Results" of this 150-plus year old computer program.

The values under the "Working Variables" columns is just program comments, too, since it's just documenting the results of what the first 4 columns would be after the instruction is "executed".

I may have a flawed understanding and http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html explains the algorithm much better, but, eventually, it would be important to see an "Idiot's Guide to Interpreting the First Computer Program" type of article, or instead, a Wikipedia article that accomplishes the same thing, using the Fourmilab resources as references.

While there is debate on what constitutes a 'computer program', this is the oldest recorded program-like algorithm designed to be run by machine. It is very, very roughly akin to assembly/machine/microcode language with a series of variables (equivalent of registers), including the equivalent of a LOOP triggered by a condition check (branching), resulting in a turing-complete language. It may deserve its own article, eventually, at least to compare this program to a modern programming language to make it easier to understand by modern programmers, perhaps two pararllel diagrams side-by-side describing the 1843 language and a modern computer's language (perhaps assembly language), perhaps both calculating bernoulli numbers -- with the same line numbering scheme and similar variable names as in the 1843 program.

Why the quotes in First "computer program"? Slartibartfastibast (talk) 21:55, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

fixed Bhny (talk) 22:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Miscellaneous contributions to the talk page

The opening section says 'She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules ...'. However, 'manipulating symbols according to rules' is not what a programmer does. If she deserves the title of the first programmer, her work should be described to justify that more clearly.

Also, I agree with the 1 Feb. 2008 comment regarding paternalism and appeal to someone to fix that.

I would address these issues myself if I knew enough to do so.

--Jreiss17 (talk) 22:33, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Um, doesn't this article seem a bit paternalistic? Throughout it, it refers to Lovelace simply by her first name, while men in the story are referred to by last name. Either the women should receive similar treatment, or we'll have to go through and change references to Babbage to "Chuck". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.140.122.72 (talk) 14:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I assume she is called Ada due to her peerage. Similar as this woman is called Victoria instead of Mrs. Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and this man Napoleon instead of Monsieur Bonaparte. --Cyfal (talk) 17:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

At least, I think that's the version...I read it from a mirror while the server was down.

This seems to be getting close to a definitive work now. Thanks for all the contributions and the first two links.

I learned a lot researching this! --Buz Cory

As best I can figure out, Lady Ada was born Augusta Ada Byron, Ada being her middle name. Can anyone confirm this for certain?

There are fragments of her notes on the analytical engine in one of the links I added. These will be put in the /notes page as I get the chance. Does anyone have access to the full notes as published in either The Ladies Diary or Taylors Memoirs? -- Buz Cory

The full article she translated and annotated is online. Link is on the analytical engine page.

I think it is exaggerated to claim that "she anticipated much of what is now taught as computer science". She described a general purpose computer and produced several example programs, that's it. She deserves the title of first programmer. If you look at contemporary computer science, you see stacks, trees, queues, sorting algorithms, graph algorithms, object oriented paradigm, compiler construction, operating systems etc. None of this was anticipated by Ada. --AxelBoldt

----

Thanks. That comment about "much of computer science" was based on the opinion of another. Now that I have read (or at least skimmed) the "Notes" myself, I am inclined to agree with you. And BTW, most of the stuff you mention has been around for four or five decades. Little of it is new.

I now have the entire text on my own workstation and will be working to convert it to XHTML, replacing most or all of the images with textual equations and tables. Mebbe sometime next week will have something. Don't see at the moment how this can be easily added to Wikipedia.

--Buz Cory

Is there any reason to believe that Lady Lovelace's writings about the Analytical Engine contain any ideas that were not communicated to her by Charles Babbage, including the instructions for the Bernoulli calculation? -- Hank Ramsey

Yes; during the time when Ada was adding her own notes to the Menabrea article (at Babbage's suggestion), she corresponded regularly with Babbage, and those letters are preserved. It is quite clear from them that many significant ideas (for example, that such an engine might be used to compose music, or draw pictures) were hers, and that Babbage himself required a bit of convincing before accepting her vision. --LDC

Hopefully someone can add these details to the article? - HWR

Babbage speaks highly of Ada in his autobiography, a chapter of which is online at the Analytical Engine page http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/

A brief investigation turned up the following statement by Allan G. Bromley from "Difference and Analytical Engines", in Computing Before Computers(1990), edited by William Aspray:

Ada Lovelace has sometimes been acclaimed as the "world's first programmer" on the strength of her authorship of the notes to the Menabrea paper. This romantically appealing image is without foundation. All but one of the programs cited in her notes had been prepared by Babbage from three to seven years earlier. the exception was prepared by Babbage for her, although she did detect a"bug" in it. Not only is there no evidence that Ada Lovelace ever prepared a program for the Analytical Engine but her correspondence with Babbage shows that she did not have the knowledge to do so.

That's a strong statement, but perhaps not the last word. Is there some more recent scholarship? - HWR

That's interesting and should definitely be included on the main page as "one opinion". Is her correspondence with Babbage publicly available? --AxelBoldt

Another comment, found in Computer: A history of the information machine (1996) by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray:

One should note, however, that the extent of Lovelace's intellectual contribution to the Sketch has been much exaggerated in recent years. She has been pronounced the world's first programmer and even had a programming language (ADA) named in her honor. Scholarship of the last decade has shown that most of the technical content and all of the programs in the Sketch were Babbage's work.

Babbage himself wrote the following, in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1846), from an excerpt found in Perspectives on the Computer Revolution (1970), edited by Zenon Pylyshyn:

I then suggested that she add some notes to Menabrea's memoir, an idea which was immediately adopted. We discussed together the various illustrations that might be introduced: I suggested several but the selection was entirely her own. So also was the algerbraic working out of the different problems, except, indeed, that relating to the numbers of Bernoulli, which I had offered to do to save Lady Lovelace the trouble. This she sent back to me for an amendment, having detected a grave mistake which I had made in the process.

On the other hand, I have not yet seen Ada: The Enchantress of Numbers by Betty Alexandra Toole, Ed.D., of which the author writes [2]:

To enable readers to base their own conclusions on the evidence, I have structured Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age to fit the internet age: one-half biography, one-half email of the 19th century. Appendix II contains the latest information about the controversy over whether Ada should be acknowledged as the first programmer and prophet of the computer age.

Is this the proper article title? Shouldn't it be Ada, Lady Lovelace? -- Zoe

Doesn't the quotation from Babbage above contradict the acticle, which implies strongly that her only contribution was to correct a single mistake? Lovelace's contributions may have been greatly exaggerated in recent years, but this article seems to give her correspondingly little credit. I don't have enough experience making edits to do this myself, but somebody should make the account a bit more balanced. Maybe the quote itself should go in the main article. -NRH

"Her husband was William King, later Earl of Lovelace. Her full name and title for most of her married life was Lady Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace. She is widely known in modern times simply as (Lady) Ada Lovelace. She is also referred to in some places as Ada Augusta which seems to be simply wrong."

This paragraph is inaccurate, but I'm not sure what the author wants it to say. Her legal name (used only on formal legal documents) would have been "The Right Honourable Augusta Ada Countess of Lovelace" and the name by which she would have been referred to in the most formal of circumstances (on the envelope of a formal letter, for instance) would have been "The Right Honourable The Countess of Lovelace".

She was never entitled to "Lady" preceding her first names, and "Lady Ada Lovelace" is just completely wrong. "Ada Lovelace", "Ada, Countess of Lovelace" or "Ada, Lady Lovelace" would be more acceptable.

I would just change it, but as I say I'm not sure exactly what information the author wants to put across.Proteus 19:29 GMT, 17th January 2004

Doron Swade, in his book "The Difference Engine" states, "Because of her article 'Sketch of the Analytical Engine', Ada's role in Babbage's work has been both exaggerated and distorted down the years, like a Chinese whisper."

"The notion that she made an inspirational contribution to the development of the Engines is not supported by the known chronology of events. The conception and major work on the Analytical Engine were complete before Ada had any contact with the elementary principles of the Engines. The first algorithms or stepwise operations leading to a solution--what we would now recognise as a 'program', though the word was not used by her or by Babbage--were certainly published under her name. But the work had been completed by Babbage much earlier."

Swade also publishes several letters from Lovelace, in which she gushes about her own genius. They sound a bit mad, to be honest. She mentions that "Owing to some peculiarity in my nervous system, I have perceptions of some things, which no one else has; or at least very few, if any. This faculty may be designated in me as a singular tact, or some might say an intuitive perception of hidden things;--that is of things hidden from ears, eyes, & the ordinary senses..." It goes on for paragraphs about her belief in her utterly unique genius.

Doron Swade also quotes "Bruce Collier, whose historical study of Babbage's work remains unsurpassed, has this to say about the popular myth of Ada's role:"

Collier: "There is one subject ancillary to Babbage on which far too much has been written, and that is the contributions of Ada Lovelace. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that Babbage wrote the 'Notes' to Menabrea's paper, but for reasons of his own encouraged the illusion in the minds of Ada and the public that they were authored by her. It is no exaggeration to say that she was a manic depressive with the most amazing delusions about her own talents, and a rather shallow understanding of both Charles Babbage and the Analytical Engine... To me, this familiar material [Ada's correspondence with Babbage] seems to make obvious once again that Ada was as mad as a hatter, and contributed little more to the 'Notes' than trouble... I will retain an open mind on whether Ada was crazy because of her substance abuse...or despite it. I hope nobody feels compelled to write another book on the subject. But, then, I guess someone has to be the most overrated figure in the history of computing."

It's disturbing. If gender politics IS getting in the way of objective history* being written then I have a horrible feeling I'm watching history being distorted by modern thinking while I watch (as no doubt it very often is).

Here's a sentence in the article that reads oddly:

"Her prose also acknowledged some possibilities of the machine which Babbage.."

Why is it written like this? If I have an idea, do I suggest it or does my prose acknowledge the possibility of such an idea?

This, and the end of the "Charles Babbage" section, give the impression that we're trying awfully hard to raise her status in the history of Science/Maths based on some heavy interpretation and supposition, but not on evidence.

Show the evidence. It's bound not to be conclusive one way or the other, but the interpretation looks dodgy, and the only way we can be objective is to have the evidence up front, and to acknowledge the existence of controversy, and rather hot-headed opinions on both sides.

yesyes I know we could have an argument about the phrase "objective history" - can we agree that I mean history that is done purely out of an interest to discover as far as we can, what happened, and not to prove some point? Probably not....13 July 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.234.28 (talk) 13:43, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Link suggestions

An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Ada_Lovelace article, and they have been placed on this page for your convenience.
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Done. -Frazzydee|✍ 13:58, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

May I add that a few of the links are currently broken, such as those linking to pages that describe the controversy. Could this be removed or revised? -- ^Evanx(tag?) 20:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Ambiguous statement.

The article includes (as the first sentence of the Life section) the following:

Ada was the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella Milbanke, a cousin of Lady Caroline Lamb, with whom he had an affair that scandalized Regency London.

I think a strict parsing of the punctuation of this sentence would indicate that he had an affair with his wife, presumably before he married her. But I cannot help wondering if the intention was to say that he had an affair with Caroline Lamb. Either way, I think it needs rephrasing to give the reader more confidence in what is being said. -- Chris j wood 11:39, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

He had an affair with Caroline Lamb, and it is through her that he met Annabella.--Gloriamarie (talk) 22:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Another query: the bio starts with the name of Byron's wife being Anne Isabella. Yet later there is reference to Annabella. Are these the same person? [[User:Johnmperry 00:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)]] 07:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Anne Isabella was nicknamed Annabella. --ubiquity (talk) 21:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Am I the only one who finds the Early Years hard to follow? I had to backtrack and reread to be certain the use of Lovelace referred to Ada. I'm no good at editting but maybe some one could polish perhaps?

Deke 64.45.228.207 (talk) 06:23, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Trivia/Hologram

Microsoft authenticity holograms

Could someone please provide a source for this? I have looked online and offline, but have been unable to discover any examples (although someone provides the example of a watermark on the Windows 95 certificate of authenticity on their blog).

I don't want to remove it just yet, because I'm not sure what Wikipedian policy is on the matter of missing sources.

Death

"Ada Lovelace was bled to death at the age of 37." This sounds odd. Elaboration is needed. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC).

Biographers noted?

"Biographers have noted that Lovelace struggled with mathematics..."

Surely this should either:

be "biographers have claimed"
or provide mention of the primary sources which they have noted. If biographers have made this claim, they presumably have some reason to, and that should be mentioned in the article.

Comment: The documentation is provided in Dorothy Stein's thorough biography, especially pp.72-84. Surely every contributor to this article has read Stein? All the evidence suggests that Lovelace was very interested in mathematics but had no great gift for it.86.163.241.57 (talk) 13:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I've fixed the section to specify that the contention is specifically Dorothy Stein's. FWIW, Stein's biography comes across as something of a hatchet job to me. She continually insists that Lovelace had no great skills in mathematics, and to prove this she cites several letters between her and De Morgan. The letters are basically a correspondence course in Calculus (which was still being actively developed at the time). The fact that Lovelace stumbled through some concepts in calculus while she was learning it doesn't seem very surprising to me. Add to this the fact that women at the time were generally not allowed to attend lectures or classes on higher mathematics (or even purchase math textbooks) and you can understand Lovelace's difficulties. If I had to learn 19th century calculus solely through exchanging letters with a mathematician (who was unpaid for his efforts) I would probably stumble occasionally as well. Kaldari (talk) 17:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The fact that Lovelace 'stumbled' when learning the most elementary calculus (nothing at all advanced) does support the view that she was not 'gifted' in mathematics. But I think Stein's most damaging point is that when Lovelace translated Menabrea's paper on Babbage's work, she failed to notice and correct a very glaring printing error in an equation: almost as obviously an error (to a mathematician) as 2 + 2 = 5. 86.181.14.170 (talk) 12:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

What is a reliable source Wikipedia:Reliable sources?

In the article Ada Lovelace User:Wolfkeeper has, in good faith Wikipedia:Assume good faith, added the following passage:

"Ada apparently was a hard drinker and gambled heavily. At the time of her death she owed £2000. Additionally, she flirted with other men, and numerous scandals were apparently covered up by her husband."

As source for this information User:Wolfkeeper gives (http://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/index/learning_about/learning_publications/literary-associations/ada-lovelace.htm) and and claims, that "as a UK government heritage source", it should be "pretty reliable". However, the site referred to says nothing about the identity or qualifications of its writer or the sources that he or she referred to. Anonymous and unsourced information about historical matters is not suitable for Wikipedia or for any other form of scholarship, not even if it appears on a local government web site.

It may be that the information added by User:Wolfkeeper is, in fact, accurate. If so, it should be able to be verified by an examination of the ample biographical material referred to in the article. I have deleted the passage in the hope of such research being done. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC).

It's not anonymous, it's an official website run by the UK government. That's like saying you can't trust anything published by NASA, unless it's signed to a particular individual. No. Reverted.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 05:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

And it's not published by local government, it's a national park run by central government.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 05:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The exmoor national park page is basically a tourist information web site. It looks as if it has been put together by a tourist officer, not a historian or biographer of Lovelace. It might be good enough, if it weren't contradicted by another source. The recently added external link is to a BBC program in which three specialists - historians and biographers specialising in the period or subject - discuss Ada Lovelace. They dismissed quite quickly the suggestion that she was 'hard-living'. Listen to the streaming audio and see what you think. As I say, I would be more comfortable with the exmoor reference if it weren't contradicted by this one. --Pstevens (talk) 08:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

To be strictly accurate, they in no way disagreed that she drank, and implied that it could have affected her behaviour (as much as her possibly being bipolar would have), and they also said she wasn't as hard living as her father (big deal!) and her husband gambled much more; but that she certainly did gamble. All in all, I'm not seeing anything that disagrees in any major way with the exmore park information. At most, they added the word 'allegedly' in front of the 'hard drinking' in the bbc radio 4 piece.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 03:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

"... rather a dull life in comparison to many other figures of her day ..."; "... it is not Ada who is doing most of the gambling ..." (but her husband); "... there's very little about drink ...", but "prescribed" opiates for terminal illness, "probably cancer of the uterus but we don't know for sure - Professor John Fuigi on the Radio 4 programme, about 30-35 minutes in, describing his conclusions from examining three archives of correspondence between Lovelace and her contemporaries. Wolfkeeper, I can see why you want to include this, since it is often quoted, but perhaps we should be saying that she has this reputation (citing the Exmoor website or other reference) but it may not be wholly justified (citing the Radio 4 program or other reference). --Pstevens (talk) 20:17, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

To be honest the program doesn't seem to come down hard either way; I've listened to it twice, and even the Radio 4 program description says she is 'allegedly hard drinking'. But I'm quite happy with it to have both sides in, it's just that the article seemed to imply that she was this saintly woman, but if half the sources on her are anything to go by, she's probably not that saintly. ;-)- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 20:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The issue at stake is not whether Ida Lovelace was a lush. The biographies, written by scholars with access to primary sources, will determine this. The issue at stake is whether a tourist web site can be taken, without further investigation, to be a reliable source of information for Wikipedia about the minutiae of nineteenth century English social history. I commend the other editors for pursuing the research further. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC).

~~I would say that this is probably a fairly reliable source and would be fine for use at this stage of the article.~~ I would expect to find corroboration in other materials though, and would probably favor deleting the passage if none was found. I plan to do some serious work on this article in the next month and will keep this in mind while doing research. --Gimme danger (talk) 05:48, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realize that the exmoor site was contradicted by a better source. Gimme danger (talk) 10:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The National Park page is a reliable page on that national park's issues, not on the biography of Lovelace. For extraordinary claims, we need an extraordinary source, i.e. from an actual book on her biography. bogdan (talk) 14:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I can cite a little information on this out of "Ada, A Life and a Legacy" by Dorothy Stein. "The issue of Ada's gambling did not become a matter of vituperation on the part of her mother until much later, and then only because it revealed the extent of Ada's alienation and provided Lady Byron with a weapon against her son-in-law. At the beginning she covertly aided and abetted Ada in her new enthusiasm." (Page 211) Earlier on the page, there is a quote from Ada's writings acknowledging that she is suffering from despair at the "great pecuniary losses I have sustained by betting". The book, as a whole, is very clear that Ada herself was interested in betting, and acquired great debts in the process. 207.207.127.231 (talk) 00:43, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

'Ada', not 'Lovelace'

I've standardised references to her as 'Ada', not 'Lovelace'. It was horribly inconsistent, and I think the first name is more familiar, even though perhaps surname is more standard. Hope this is OK with everyone. Earthlyreason (talk) 04:29, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact I think it should revert to 'Lovelace'. It is my impression that it is standard to refer to professionals and prominent figures by their surnames. Using the familiar address is not only inconsistent with this standard, it also (to me, and potentially to others) has the potential to reduce the standing or perceived authority of the contribution that the subject has made within his/her field. First names imply a personal relation rather than one of professional respect. As Lovelace is a woman in a field with few women, this is particularly problematic. It looks especially awkward in phrases like 'Ada and Babbage' in which he is recorded by the normal, surname-standard, whereas she remains in the intimate personal form. Therefore I have edited it to consistently read 'Lovelace' rather than 'Ada'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.176.53 (talk) 11:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this comment of 86.157.176.53. For some unknown reason I messed up my own edit. Xxanthippe (talk) 12:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC).

At least it's consistent. I'm Ok to keep it as 'Lovelace' for the reasons given. It just sounds a bit blunt; perhaps I'm paternalistic (see first comment above.) Earthlyreason (talk) 17:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It's Wikipedia practice to use the last name when possible.--Gloriamarie (talk) 22:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh. I just commented above that I found use of Lovelace hard to follow and had to reread. Were women of the era referred to by last name only without being disrespectful? Perhaps it doesn't matter if it reads clearly.

Deke 64.45.228.207 (talk) 06:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Using "Lovelace" to refer to Ada Augusta Byron-King is like referring to Sarah Margaret Ferguson as "York", or to Marguerite Gardiner as "Blessington". It is mainly weird. 88.235.61.242 (talk) 17:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Except that Lovelace is what she went by then and now. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:20, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Besides, peers use the territorial designation of their title as their signature and are referred to by the territorial designation of their title rather than by their names. Surtsicna (talk) 22:39, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Surtsicna is correct. It was not uncommon for nobility to be referred to simply by their territorial designation, so calling her "Lovelace" is not that strange. Babbage himself referred to her as "Lady Lovelace". Additionally, she is now almost exclusively referred to as "Ada Lovelace" (with "Lovelace" being used as a surname would be) so we need to treat that as her effective name, per WP:UCN. Additionally, referring to her by her first name is strongly discouraged by WP:LASTNAME. Kaldari (talk) 15:27, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Ada Lovelace was not a Peer. She was the wife of a Peer. In the usage of her day her husband would have been referred to informally as 'Lovelace' she as 'Lady Lovelace'. Maybe the best compromise for this article would be 'Ada Lovelace'. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC).

That would not be a compromise, it would be a mistake. Her name was Ada Augusta Byron King, the Countess Lovelace. the usage "Ada Lovelace" betrays American ignorance of English titles. She would have been known as "Lady Lovelace", just as her father was known as "Lord Byron" even after he changed his surname to Noel-Byron. The peerage always takes precedence over the surname. Thus the lady in question would have been addressed as "Lady Lovelace" or perhaps "Countess Lovelace", but NEVER as "Lady Ada", "Lovelace" (only the peer holding the title -- her husband -- would have been so addressed), or "Ada Lovelace". Wikipedia's "policy" should give way to the usage correct to the time and place being referenced. Munchkyn (talk) 23:08, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Rearrangement of information; revisiting Ada vs Lovelace

I haven't changed any of the page's content as such, but I have made several rearrangements to the existing content. Before I did this, the article jumped back and forth through her life in a few places, and there was a lot of repetition. This gave the article an unpolished, amateur feel, and it was confusing to read. I think my rearrangements have put things in a more logical order and have hopefully clarified some of the sections I was initially confused by. I'm happy to discuss further if anyone wants.

I've also used the name "Ada" instead of "Lovelace" in some places. I did this initially before reading the discussion above (sorry - I'm new to editing Wikipedia and I didn't realise it would have been best to read the previous discussions first; I won't make that mistake again). I understand the points above about "Ada" appearing to be less respectful than "Lovelace", and about inconsistency with using both names at different places, however I think my name changes make sense, at least to some extent. Happy to hear disagreements. :) Here's my reasons for the name choices I made:

- When I first read the article, I was a little confused by all the different names and by who was related to whom (Lord Byron's affairs don't help with this!) I found it odd that Ada Lovelace was being referred to as "Lovelace" during her childhood when she only took on that name upon marriage. I felt that using "Ada" for her early years makes more sense.

- I started using "Lovelace" after she married, except where it wouldn't be clear whether "Lovelace" referred to Ada or her husband. For example, immediately after the description of her marriage, the article originally talked about "Lovelace" being sick, and about "Lovelace's mother". Nothing in the context made it immediately obvious without any doubt which Lovelace it referred to (e.g., it could have been Ada'a husband's mother that told her about Lord Byron's incest instead of Ada's own mother). I know that if her husband was being discussed, then he would probably always be referred to by a more formal title than "Lovelace", but people who are new to English peerage conventions might not realise this and hence might have trouble working out whether "Lovelace" referred to the husband or wife.

- I used "Lovelace" or "Ada Lovelace" exclusively when talking about her post-marriage work with Charles Babbage. I know this is inconsistent with using "Ada" earlier, but I introduced this section by initially using "Ada Lovelace", so I think the transition from "Ada" to "Lovelace" won't be too startling.

- The External links section has two references that refer to Ada Lovelace merely as "Ada". It seems that this is not an unacceptable naming convention for her in modern literature. Thus I don't believe that calling her "Ada" in the article is disrespectful, especially when it lends clarity to the article.

Lady alys (talk) 12:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Ada Augusta Byron married William King, the 8th Baron King. As such, her surname changed from Byron to King. If she had lived in America, she would have been known as Ada King or Mrs. King. When he was created the 1st Earl Lovelace, that title superseded "Baron King" and became her title as well ("the Countess Lovelace"). Since her husband was a peer, he would have been known as Lord Lovelace or merely "Lovelace", just as Ada's father (also a peer) was known as Lord Byron or "Byron". To refer to Ada Augusta Byron King as "Lovelace" is absurd; it was her title, NOT her surname. The wife of an Earl is called a Countess, and is addressed as "Lady Lovelace" not because "Lovelace" is her surname, but because it is her husband's title. She would never have been addressed as "Lady Ada", nor would anyone have called her "Lovelace". The prep-school attitude of Wikipedia, which calls people by their surnames even if those people would never have been called by their surnames in their lifetimes, only adds confusion to the debate. For the sake of clarity, she should be called "Ada". If that's too hard to swallow, call her "Lady Lovelace", just as we call her father "Lord Byron" rather than "George" or "George Byron". But don't, for the love of heraldry, call her "Lovelace" or "Ada Lovelace". Neither usage is correct.Munchkyn (talk) 22:58, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Although, technically her birth surname was Gordon, and was only marked as Byron because her father, George Gordon, was Lord Byron. I feel that there could be a note of this somewhere? ^[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.61.95.178 (talk) 14:03, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

How do we know that bloodletting was a contributory cause of Lovelace's death?

It says in the article that, "Lovelace died at the age of thirty-six, on 27 November 1852,[22] from uterine cancer and bloodletting by her physicians." Surely we cannot know that. Even if we have doubts about the process, and are sure that it cannot be good practice, we cannot know that it was a contributory cause of her death. There seems to be a number of bold statements in the article where the sentences might more thoughtfully have been qualified to allow for the lack of certainty. Just my view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.233.172 (talk) 20:41, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I endorse this view. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC).

Should Ada Lovelace Day be included under the "Influences" area?

Hi, everyone. I wanted to bring up the question of whether Ada Lovelace Day should be added under the "Influences" section. My assumption is that cultural events having been influenced by the life of Lady Lovelace - and indeed named after her and continued in her spirit - should be included in this area. Ada Lovelace Day is a relatively new event, but one which has already garnered international participation and press. I had added something about it last year, but it was removed by an editor for not being influential enough. I can provide a bunch of sources from major media outlets that reported about the scope and success of the first iteration of the event if necessary (as well as plans for the second go for this year) that hopefully should provide some proof of the event's broad reach around the world. If that's not sufficient, I'm curious what criteria would be necessary for Ada Lovelace Day to ever be considered appropriately influential to include here...a certain number of participants? A certain number of media mentions? Anyway, thanks in advance for your input/thoughts/help! Girona7 (talk) 06:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it warrants a mention - as Girona7 says, over a thousand people participated last year, and it got a lot of mentions in the technical press and at least some national papers e.g. [3]. Hannah dee (talk) 11:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Link to Reference Web Site

Question about this revert. The suggestion was that this is a link to a blog, but it's not. It's a link to the official web site for a book that was already listed under the References. I notice there are links to similar kinds of web sites under External Links. Any objections if I re-revert? Thanks! --Eekim (talk) 15:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Which Name First?

The article refers both to "Ada Augusta" and also to "Augusta Ada." Which is correct? (Once we know that, the article can be edited for consistency.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbrownspsu (talk • contribs) 17:35, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

possible source

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K5p_tBcrd0&feature=player_detailpage#t=2188s

01:10, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Analytical Engine was never built in 1991 as stated; it was The Difference Engine No. 2

I came to this article after reading a current NY Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/science/computer-experts-building-1830s-babbage-analytical-engine.html?ref=science&pagewanted=all) and noticed the above discepancy, coflicting with statements in the first paragraph here. According to this article, the AE has not been built. 162.84.146.226 (talk) 12:14, 11 November 2011 (UTC)David B. 11/11/2021. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.84.146.226 (talk) 12:06, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

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The picture was placed on the Ada Lovelace page by an IP spa. if the photo is indeed of Ada, and can be sourced reliably (the source given by the spa (an obscure feminist blog) needs to be improved on and the age at which it was taken included) then I hope it will be kept. It is a far more plausible image of her than the previous one, which portrayed her as a tarted-up society flibbertigibbet. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:23, 13 December 2011 (UTC).

Effect on programming

It says as much above but maybe should be included in the article. Because she was rediscovered after actual programs for actual computers started being written, she had about as much impact on programming as Gregor Mendel had on genetics. None. Mendel, too, was rediscovered after someone else has stumbled on genes. Student7 (talk) 17:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Removing statement from "Controversy" due to misunderstanding of source

I'm removing the statement that Dorothy Stein "contends that the programs were mostly written by Babbage himself" because I read the original source and the author has misunderstood the source. Stein's actual statement is that all the examples of writing instructions for the machine in the Notes other than the Bernoulli number program were written by Babbage originally. There is no disagreement about Babbage's authorship of these examples, but they are not the "first computer program" or programs at all because of their simplicity. The Bernoulli number example is the "first computer program" and Stein documents Lovelace's extensive work on this example on pages 106 - 108. If another editor wants to add this claim back, please give a specific quote and a page number (the original cite included 19 pages, 92-110, most of which were not relevant). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catavar (talk • contribs) 21:18, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Facts and name

There was really no need to revert my entire edit. As I explained in the edit summary, I corrected several mistakes in the article unrelated to the name issue. For example, Ada was not born as the daughter of Baroness Wentworth. She was born to the Baroness Byron, who would become Baroness Wentworth many decades later. Her mother was not the "sole remaining representative of the Wentworth Viscounts", firstly because she was not a viscount and secondly because there was at least one other - Ada herself.

Now, about the name. It is factually incorrect to call her Lovelace when referring to events that took place before she became Countess of Lovelace. It is impossible to speak of "Lovelace" as a child. That's not only common sense, but also a Wiki guideline. Now, there's also the issue of whether "Lovelace" alone is appropriate, and it is a genuine problem for many people that can be easily solved by calling her "Lady Lovelace" and "Countess of Lovelace", at least in instances when it's not clear that the sentence does not refer to her husband (as peerage territorial designation normally do refer to the holde of the peerage and not the holder's spouse). It also flows better than just "Lovelace" because it is much less repetitious. Surtsicna (talk) 23:14, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing the issue of the naming of Ada Lovelace to this talk page. There has been much discussion of the issue in the page above and it is appropriate to discuss it here before jumping in with major changes to a long established article.

Like many women of her class and time Ada experienced several modes of address during her life. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies states "A woman should be referred to by her most commonly used name, which will not necessarily include her husband's surname." In this case she is clearly known best as "Ada Lovelace" and this is the mode I would like to see used in the article. I would also think that "Ada" would be appropriate usage in many parts of the article particularly towards the middle and latter parts, but one editor thinks this is undignified (I don't see this myself). I do not support your scheme of referring to Ada by the style that held at various different times of her life, this just confuses the reader.

I suggest you leave the name issue until consensus is obtained on this page, and concentrate your edits one at a time on the "mistakes" that you claim exist in the article, giving an explanation of each of them, although I am not sure that all of them are mistakes. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:18, 31 July 2012 (UTC).

If they are not mistakes, feel free to explain how. It is a fact that she was not born to the Baroness Wentworth and that her mother was not the only representative of her line, for example. Anyway, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Subsequent use clearly states: "A member of the nobility may be referred to by title if that form of address would have been the customary way to refer to him or her; for example Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester may become "the Earl of Leicester" or just "Leicester" in subsequent mentions. Be careful not to give someone a title too soon; for example, one should use "Robert Dudley" or "Dudley" when describing events prior to his elevation to the peerage in 1564." It simply makes no sense to call her Lovelace when dealing with events that took place when she was a baby, decades before she actually became Countess of Lovelace. It is not my scheme - it is what's usually done. It's like referring to Elizabeth II as "the Queen" while describing her childhood. See, for example, the article about Laura Bush, who is called Welch in the first section and subsequently Bush. Surtsicna (talk) 10:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I also think it would be more appropriate to avoid using her first name, especially in the middle and latter parts because those parts concern a mature person who we can correctly call Lovelace. Then again, in the sections dealing with her early life, it is better to call her Ada than Lovelace simply because she was not Lovelace back then. I also think that calling her "Lovelace", "Lady Lovelace", "the Countess of Lovelace" and "the Countess" can only improve the prose by enriching it; I doubt it could confuse anyone, since it is properly explained that she was Countess of Lovelace in the very first sentence of the article and later in the section dealing with her marriage. For example, the article Queen Victoria alternates between "Victoria" and "the Queen", which is undoubtly better than using "Victoria" in every instance. Surtsicna (talk) 15:27, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

An authoritative source on the formal and informal usage of British titles is Debrett's Correct Form (Futura 1976) ISBN 0 7088 1500 6. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:28, 2 August 2012 (UTC).

I know. Since you don't seem to be opposed to my suggestions anymore, I'll try to fix more mistakes and enrich the prose a little bit. Surtsicna (talk) 08:43, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that "enriching the prose" is appropriate in an encyclopaedia. Maximizing accessibility is surely the aim here. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:53, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't the prose be engaging? Is it really confusing to call her "Lovelace", "Lady Lovelace" and "the Countess of Lovelace"? It seems quite clear that she was Countess of Lovelace. Isn't it better than using plain "Lovelace" in every instance? If it is, I don't mind that. Surtsicna (talk) 15:57, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

This isn't my area of expertise, but I think that there are novels where the reader is expected to know that characters with slightly different titles are different people, so here they might wonder if "Lady Lovelace" and "the Countess of Lovelace" are different people. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:43, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

My revision of 5 August of the article is intended to make it read as simply as possible for the new reader. I follow the convention adopted by all of Ada's biographers in referring to her by the same name throughout (usually Ada). This removes the difficulty mentioned above of wondering if the "Countess" and "Lady Lovelace" are the same person and who, for example, "her niece" is; a little mental calculation is needed to work out that it is in fact Ada. The new reader should not be expected to have to make this calculation himself. In one paragraph of the 4 August version of Surtsicna the same person (Ada) is referred to as "Ada Lovelace", "the Countess" and "Lovelace". This is clumsy and sows unneeded confusion.

There is, though, one usage that is indisputably incorrect. That is to refer to Ada Lovelace as "Lovelace". This abbreviated form is the informal way of referring the holder of the peerage, it is never, neither then nor now, used for the wife of the peer. Therefore, to attribute the mathematical work to "Lovelace" is not only to commit a solecism but, by implying that the work was done by her husband (which no scholar has ever contended is the case), reads as an insult to Ada's memory.

I have put back my own edits that deal with these styling issues, in addition correcting some errors that I missed on the first round. My last edit was reverted after four hours. I hope this one lasts the 24 hour cycle. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:15, 5 August 2012 (UTC).

This article was edited as part of an edit-a-thon


	This article was edited as part of the San Francisco WikiWomen's Edit-a-thon. The editor who attended the event may be a new editor. In an effort to support new editors & a healthy environment, please assume good faith to their contributions before making changes. Thank you! Sarah (talk) 21:52, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Editors of Wikipedia are expected to edit competently in accordance with precedent. Those who are not able to may have their edits reverted. No dispensation is made for special interest groups. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:33, 31 July 2012 (UTC).

Is this a declaration that you will bite newbies? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:36, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

What newbies are you referring to? The editor who I reverted has an edit history going back to 2008? Xxanthippe (talk) 00:23, 8 August 2012 (UTC).

yes that is his mission Bhny (talk) 13:08, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, the editor makes no statement about gender on their user page, and I don't think that we should assume that over-active fangs⇒masculine gender. Nice male humans might be rare, but they do exist. :) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:44, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Childhood

In this section is the sentence "The acrimonious divorce, with allegations of immoral behaviour against Byron [10] that Annabella would continue to make throughout her life." which appears to have lost some meaning during editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.81.28.204 (talk) 14:01, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Also, the sentence, "Annabella did not have a close relationship with the young Ada and the child often left her in the care of her grandmother Judith Milbanke, who doted on her." which appears to have become garbled. The child left her mother in the charge of her grandmother? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.81.28.204 (talk) 14:05, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you tidy this up yourself (making sure that content is consistent with the sources)? Xxanthippe (talk) 00:33, 17 August 2012 (UTC).

Photograph of Ada Lovelace

There is a supposed photograph of Ada Lovelace floating around the internet. See, for example here and here. There are two problems with this photograph:

I have not been able to locate any provenance for it. Does anyone know where it came from?
Portrait photography didn't start until the 1840s and was quite rare until the 1850s. Lovelace died in 1852.

Anyone have further information or opinions on the legitimacy of this photograph? Kaldari (talk) 19:16, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

This isn't a citable source, of course, but Sydney Padua has done the most research on original sources for Lovelace's life that I'm aware of and says there is no photo of Lovelace: http://www.sydneypadua.com/betatesting/?page_id=177. My money is on it being of someone else so I wouldn't spend too much time looking for a source. Thanks for checking it out, though - it would be really cool if we did have a photo of her! Catavar (talk) 03:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

According to Padua, that photo is actually of Lovelace's daughter, Lady Anne Blunt. Kaldari (talk) 23:26, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Criticism or Defence

The quotation of Babbage's Autobiography "Passages from the Life of a Philosopher" (1864) should be placed under Criticism not under Defence. Babbage simply states, that he is the author of the "first computer program" (Bernoulli number algorithm). 84.119.110.166 (talk) 11:42, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Eugene Eric Kim and Betty Alexandar Toole: "From this letter, two things are clear." This letter should be cited. 84.119.110.166 (talk) 11:58, 13 December 2015 (UTC) In general: It is always better to cite the facts, not the interpretations! 84.119.110.166 (talk) 12:12, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok, found that letter. Ada to Babbage: "Give me the necessary data & formulae". To realize what is meant by data & formulae, one should read Menabreas Sketch of the Analytical Engine (English Translation: Ada Lovelace). --84.119.110.166 (talk) 02:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

The citation from Doron Swade book "The Difference Engine" should also be placed under Criticism. 84.119.110.166 (talk) 12:02, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

"Kim and Toole dispute this claim: Babbage had written several small programs for the Analytical Engine in his notebook in 1836 and 1837, but none of them approached the complexity of the Bernoulli numbers program." The computer programs for the calculation of polynomial functions are less complex, but the computer programs concerning Gauss elimination are as complex as the Bernoulli numbers program. These programs were developed between 1837 and 1840. ("Some two dozen programs for the Analytical Engine exist dated between 1837 and 1840." Quelle: A. G. Bromley, Analytical Engine, Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 4, Number 3, July 1982 p. 215.) 84.119.110.166 (talk) 12:47, 13 December 2015 (UTC) 84.119.110.166 (talk) 12:52, 13 December 2015 (UTC) Typo 84.119.110.166 (talk) 23:37, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

WP:No original research

In recent days an WP:Spa User:84.119.110.166, who has edited for less than a fortnight, has made 23 edits to Ada Lovelace and its talk. The edits take the form of arguing about the degree of originality of Ada's contribution by quoting primary sources. This is a totally inappropriate use of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a tertiary source and should not to be used as a forum for a debate about matters relating to its subject, which would be more appropriate in a secondary source or a blog outside Wikipedia. I have reverted the edits on the grounds of WP:No original research. There is nothing to stop material from authoritative secondary sources that discuss this issue from being added. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:27, 17 December 2015 (UTC).

I've reverted the authoritative secondary sources Kim and Toole1999 and Bromley1982, you deleted unintentionally. The source Babbage Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864) (Autobiography) should be added, because Bromley1990 uses this primary source for his interpretation. So we have primary and secondary source. In my opinion it is allowed by "WP:No original research" to cite primary sources, but without own interpretation. Otherwise you have to delete most of the citations in the Wikipedia. --84.119.110.166 (talk) 10:03, 17 December 2015 (UTC) --84.119.110.166 (talk) 15:55, 17 December 2015 (UTC) --84.119.110.166 (talk) 15:58, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

The quotation from Bruce Collier's PhD thesis is also no "authoritative secondary source", it's a polemic. So this quotation should be removed. --84.119.110.166 (talk) 10:26, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

A Harvard PhD thesis that is a polemic? You will need a source for that opinion. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:44, 17 December 2015 (UTC).

The wrong quotation is in my opinion a polemic. The Harvard PhD thesis is of course a reliable source. We should correct this. --84.119.110.166 (talk) 02:56, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I've found Collier's PhD thesis: http://robroy.dyndns.info/collier/ch3.html. I can't find the quotation in his thesis. --84.119.110.166 (talk) 17:27, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

A quotation from Collier's PhD thesis is "She made a considerable contribution to publicizing the Analytical Engine, but there is no evidence that she advanced the design or theory of it in anyway." --84.119.110.166 (talk) 18:07, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Lead versus Overview sections

At the moment this article has a sketchy lead section and an "overview" section. Now the manual if style on the lead section WP:Lede says "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic". Hence the Overview section is superfluous to a properly crafted led. The simplest approach is merge it into the Leda. Now I tried that but another disagreed, so we need to talk about this. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:54, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree they should be combined into a single lead section. Kaldari (talk) 01:12, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to the talk page in conformity with WP:BRD. As you can see from reading this talk page, the article has become very contentious, and many people have axes to grind on it for reasons that I do not fully understand. So changes are best made gradually. My impression is that the current lede is concise, acceptable and non-contentious. The overview could be incorporated in the main text, but I don't see any problem with it at present. The structure is clear and WP:IAR. I don't think we need anything in the lede about "poetical science", that is too much detail. Maybe the thing to do is just remove the Heading Overview. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:55, 5 February 2016 (UTC).

Like this [4]. What do you think? Xxanthippe (talk) 04:19, 5 February 2016 (UTC).

conforming to the MoS for article layout is nothing to do with the merits of Lovelace as possibly the first "programmer" (or not). There is no intention to remove material from combining the two, save where there is duplication. Renaming the section to overview does not make it any less of a displaced summary of the whole article. As to poetical science, if it (or any item) is too much detail for a lede (and ledes can be quick big) its too much for an overview. GraemeLeggett (talk) 07:17, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree. It could go later in the main text. Xxanthippe (talk) 08:30, 5 February 2016 (UTC).

Collier1990

@Kaldari: You edited the citation Collier1990 (chapter=preface). Because of that, I assume you own that source. Could you please send a copy of the additional preface to me. Thanks. 178.200.105.202 (talk) 01:01, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

No, I don't have it. I was just going on your statement above that it was in a non-paginated preface (and the fact that Google Books won't give a page number for it in snippet view (which would seem to corroborate that.) Kaldari (talk) 01:07, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Thats bad. Nobody has the source. Not the original contributor, not you, not I. This is a clear case of WP:VERIFY and WP:RELIABLE. 178.200.105.202 (talk) 07:34, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Recent changes

@J M Rice: Could you give me a little explanation as to the reasoning behind your recent changes? It seems like you removed some relevant information and made some strange formatting changes. R. A. Simmons ^Talk 00:03, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

"Explains, specifies, suggests, etc." are hackneyed. "At least a few..." is POV. Actually, the entire section is one-sided and polemical and the sources repetitive and rather obscure. It really should be deleted in toto, so my changes are minimal. Maybe you're someone who wants to plug his "Harvard" dissertation? J M Rice (talk) 07:10, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Hey, assume good faith, please. I was just confused by the changes you made. As for your reasoning, I don't think that words being overused makes them necessarily incorrect or not useful within an encyclopedia, but I agree with many of your changes. I think that it could improve the section of the article on controversy over her contributions if we added a little background to the quotes and their authors. "Eugene Eric Kim and Betty Alexandra Toole:", for instance, doesn't really provide much relevance or authority to the following quote. It's certainly not your fault, but could we do something about that? R. A. Simmons ^Talk 12:27, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Agree, context is everything. Commentators on her activities need to be given with background for the readers benefit. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:45, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Collier's 1970 Harvard thesis is a reliable source (http://robroy.dyndns.info/collier/ch3.html). The 1990 "polemic" is from a new unsigned PREFACE without pagination for a facsimile reproduction of the thesis. The contributor of the quote said to me, that she doesn't have the original 1990 source, but she believes the quotation is correct. I can't check that. 178.200.105.202 (talk) 13:36, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

We should pick one of Collier's quotes or the other. They basically say the same thing (that the ideas in the Notes were Babbage's and not Lovelace's). Having two lengthy quotes from a single person seems undue especially since Collier was not a Lovelace scholar (he was a Babbage scholar). Kaldari (talk) 19:13, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I think that in the absence of a Lovelace scholar, a Babbage scholar would probably be the next highest authority. However, the current quote format is very poor, regardless. R. A. Simmons ^Talk 20:48, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Betty Alexandra Toole is the Lovelace scholar (she wrote Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers), but she only gets 2 sentences in that section. I would favor expanding her quotation (as she does have more to say on the matter), and reducing Collier's quotations (just picking 1 of the 2). Kaldari (talk) 01:12, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I want to point out, that Collier's 1990 preface is not peer-reviewed. It does not fulfill basic scientific standards in contrast to Collier's 1970 thesis or Bromley's articles. In order to improve the quality of this article, we should remove this quote. 178.200.105.202 (talk) 21:56, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I was unaware that such statements as made in a preface required peer-review, nor was I aware that there were scientific standards for them (it is a matter of history). Speaking of Bromley, though, the final quotation in the section (from Bromley) is totally pointless and irrelevant to the section. Or am I missing something? R. A. Simmons ^Talk 02:33, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Prefaces don't need a peer-review process. So you can reprint your thesis with an additional preface full of defamations. The claim by Fuegi et al. was, that Lovelace was the first computer programmer, the Bernoulli program the first program. Bromley states, that there exist several dozen computer programs before. So there is a controversy. 178.200.105.202 (talk) 07:58, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

"Work" redundancy

There seems to be a large amount of overlap between the primary text of the "work" section and its subheading, "first computer program". They're almost verbatim reproductions of one another. What should be done? Should one be removed? R. A. Simmons ^Talk 13:34, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

The William King mystery

Currently the Notes section has 2 contradictory statements:

"Sources disagree on whether William King, her maths tutor, and William King, her later husband, were the same person." (with no citation)
"Sources make it clear that William King, her tutor, and William King, her future husband, were not related." (with 1 citation)

As we only have 1 citation, I don't see how we can make any claim about the "sources". Perhaps someone could dig up some more references on this. Kaldari (talk) 19:10, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

The tutor was William King (physician), a connection of her mother through the early co-operative movement. This business should be cleaned up – I wouldn't say the "doubt"/"mystery" needs to be kept for NPOV.

A relevant reference is in Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan, which I have just written. As Sophia Frend, she was a tutor to Ada a couple of years before King; and there is a third name, Arabella Lawrence, whom I have not yet tracked down.

The current article here does not mention these other two, so the whole coverage needs work. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:09, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Special:Diff/736904549

Hi. Are you sure she died from cancer? As I know it's completely wrong. She had cancer indeed, until her last day, but the cause of death was different. Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 16:24, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Please give a source. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC).

Wolfram on Lovelace

Stephen Wolfram published a significant piece on Ada Lovelace: http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/untangling-the-tale-of-ada-lovelace/. Kaldari (talk) 08:49, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding us of this again.Talk:Ada Lovelace#Ada/Babbage/Wolfram. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:23, 6 October 2016 (UTC).

Algorithim

Could we please get a description of the algorithm that Ada wrote down? What problem does it solve, how does it work, and is it still in use today?

I'm curious ... has anyone translated her algorithm into source code and run it on a modern computer? --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:58, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

See the section [#First computer program]] at the top of this page for a link to the Bernoulli program. More are given at [5]. Dmcq (talk) 12:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The reason for differentiating between Lovelace's notes and the physical manifestation of a multiplication algorithm as the Leibniz_wheel needs to be explained. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.239.194.197 (talk) 22:27, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 February 2017

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Typo:

Change "As a result, she is often regarded as the first the recognise the full potential of a "computing machine" and the first computer programmer."

to

"As a result, she is often regarded as the first to recognise the full potential of a "computing machine" and the first computer programmer." 194.176.105.141 (talk) 11:09, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Done Gulumeemee (talk) 11:25, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

[Category:Programming language designers]

What computer language did Ada Lovelace design to put her into the category of "Programming language designers" ? - Bevo (talk) 18:10, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

I removed that category. Kaldari (talk) 17:26, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Mention of Enchantress of Numbers

@Rhain: I don't want this to become an edit war, but, per the notability guidelines—the entire first sentence, no less—"On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article". Further in the lead, they even add emphasis to make sure you don't confuse the guidelines for what you've confused them for: "These guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list".

I'm fairly sure that you were referring, instead, to verifiability. While I would not expect something so benign, that a one second Google search could verify—and that anyone could easily add a citation to if they felt it necessary—to be considered "…material whose verifiability… is likely to be challenged…", I have no problem adding a citation to it for you. Would you prefer the author's website, Barnes & Noble's website, or Amazon? They should all be acceptable for verification, according to the primary source guidelines. R. A. Simmons ^Talk 01:55, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

@Rasimmons: Perhaps I should have been more specific about WP:N, and I apologise for quickly linking it without properly vetting—I should have referred to, at minimum, WP:NNC, though a more specific content policy (WP:BLP in particular) would have been better. However, I actually did refer to WP:V in my edit summary, though I appreciate you quoting it here for clarification. I also agree that a one second Google search can technically verify (though not signify the importance of) the information, so I would appreciate you taking the burden and doing so, and I thank you for offering. In saying that, I would not necessarily prefer any of those websites, as per WP:IRS, "Journalistic and academic sources are preferable", and per WP:IPCV, they "[do] not demonstrate the significance of the reference" (the "reference" being the book)—but if it's the best source you can find, then its inclusion may be warranted. – Rhain ☔ 02:21, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

What is required, at least, are authoritative reviews that demonstrate that the book is accepted as a significant contribution to Ada studies. This article does not have a trivia section. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:42, 30 November 2017 (UTC).

@Xxanthippe: The article does have an "in popular culture" section, though. In my opinion, that's exactly where this would belong. I'll make the edits when I have the time (not right now, unfortunately). Also, thanks to Rhain for being so understanding. R. A. Simmons ^Talk 02:26, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, I really don't see a problem with an actual book about the article's topic being included in the in popular culture section, especially since it took until now for Xxanthippe to remove mention of a nonexistent, niche, only-relevant-in-name journal (which obviously met none of the criteria just mentioned) from the article. R. A. Simmons ^Talk 02:26, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Edit dispute over lede

user Cúchullain has altered the lede in a way that I think does not improve on the established version. The established lede states succinctly who she was and what she did. That suffices. What do other users think? Xxanthippe (talk) 23:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC).

From WP:LEDE, "The article should begin with a declarative sentence, answering two questions for the nonspecialist reader: "What (or who) is the subject?" and "Why is this subject notable?" Just saying she was the daughter of Byron hardly answers either question. Even the old version of the lead indicated that she is "mainly known" for her work on the analytical engine; as such it needs to go first. The rest should summarize the contents of the article, which I've tried to do with my most recent addition. If you can think of a way to improve the wording, please do, but these concerns need to be addressed.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

As Cúchullain, I would prefer mentioning first her work for the analytical engine, because that's what she became famous for. I would however drop the second section of the lede (except perhaps its first sentence) and merge its contents with the following sections below the table of contents. --Cyfal (talk) 12:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Cyfal. On the rest of the lede, all articles need to have a lead that summarizes the article's contents. This may not be the best way to do it, but some summary of the important points needs to be there.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Bold text — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.65.234 (talk) 14:28, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Titles and styles

No reference is given for this whole section. As with everything on Wikipedia, it should either be documented with a reliable source or removed - unless it is Original Research, in which case it should just be removed). Agricolae (talk) 01:18, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

The matter is thoroughly documented in the biographies and DNB. You also may care to look at Hereditary title. Please follow the WP:BRD procedure and do not revert until consensus of other editors is obtained on this talk page. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:31, 3 February 2018 (UTC).

If these styles are thoroughly documented, then you shouldn't have any problem coming up with a specific citation to a reliable source for her being called "The Honourable Ada Byron" on 10 December 1815, and likewise with the other claimed styles and dates. However, your pointing to Hereditary titles, which does not name Ada Lovelace, makes me suspect that these styles are 'deduced' and that it represents WP:OR. If this is a mis-perception on my part, it is nothing a specific citation to a reliable source won't solve. Agricolae (talk) 21:27, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

If you think that a source is needed then add it yourself. You have been told where to look. Do not expect other editors to make your edits for you. Please do not make any more mass edits of this nature (adding citation-needed flags to articles involving styles and titles) until consensus is established that they are useful. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:23, 3 February 2018 (UTC).

WP:V thinks a source is needed for all information in Wikipedia, and thus it is up to those who want the material retained to come up with one. Information that is is not reliable (for which no reference can be provided) is subject to removal. Again, give me a reference that shows that she was called "The Honourable Ada Byron" on 10 December 1815, or accept that this is unverifiable. "Find it yourself"is not a productive response. Agricolae (talk) 23:37, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

The concerns that you have expressed here cover many more articles than this one. Another editor has suggested on your talk page that you discuss the matter on the appropriate project page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage before resuming your mass edits. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:55, 7 February 2018 (UTC).

So, you still can't provide references for this article's Styles section then? If not then it fails WP:V, and we all know what that means. Agricolae (talk) 09:17, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

WP:PROVEIT applies here "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution...Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source.". Richerman (talk) 11:34, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Use of English

The term "English" used to describe the country of origin of people who live/lived in England seems to be surprisingly prevalent on this project (also other parts of the United Kingdom as well). This is not appropriate as the standard practice is to identify people by the sovereign state in which they are born, not the former state or the subdivision of the sovereign state. Lovelace is British, which is the ethnonym for the UK, as the term English (or Scottish) belongs to people from before 1707.--Mevagiss (talk) 22:37, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

An interesting point. Can you give a Wikipedia policy source, as these arguments are legion and it would be good to settle the matter? Xxanthippe (talk) 22:40, 7 February 2018 (UTC).

That's a rather categorical viewpoint of a nuanced topic. Nationality can be, is and has been used to describe ethnic groups (for want of a better term) as well as legal status. I can see an argument for describing Lovelace as British, but I think there is an equally strong - if not stronger - argument for describing her as English, given her family background, title, and the cultural and social climate of the time. There's an essay about nationalities of people from the UK (WP:UKNATIONALS) which I think is useful in pointing out the difficulties in trying to reduce English/Irish/Scottish/Welsh/etc. nationality down to a single point. Overall, we should follow what the sources say: if they say English, we say English. If they say British, we say British. Personal opinion shouldn't come into it. Marianna251TALK 22:54, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

As the essay says-there is no need to enforce uniformity. I suspect the many sources differ among themselves too. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:52, 8 February 2018 (UTC).

I was not aware of the essay, although I had tried to find one. I would say that it probably overstates the issue, but I can see that any attempt to attain uniformity would be mistaken. Are the sources consistent on describing Lovelace as English? I don't think they are. The primary complication is that many people fall back in speech and writing (including many people I know) into lazily using "England" (very common) or "English" when they are referring to the UK, not the former state of England. This was definitely widespread in the 19th century as well. WP should not promote this misconception.--Mevagiss (talk) 10:01, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

(FYI, I changed the indentation of my original comment back to its initial place, since my reply was to Mevagiss and not XXanthippe, and dropped the corresponding indentation on replies accordingly. I generally have no problem with others indenting my comments to make a clear line of discussion, but the indentation made it look like I was referring to Xxanthippe's comment, not Mevagiss'. Hope that's okay.)

I'm not familiar with a number of the sources used in the article, so I can't comment on what they do/don't say, and modern discussion does tend lazily say "England" when it often means "UK". However, I don't believe the laziness is/has been regularly used when referring to an individual's nationality. David Hume, for example, is never described as a British philosopher; his philosophical style is known as "British empiricism", but he himself is always referred to as Scottish, even though he was born after 1707.

I think there's a danger in projecting a modern viewpoint onto historical figures and underestimating just how pronounced national divides were - much more so than in modern times - particularly when (as in the case of Ada Lovelace) we're talking about a person born into the Peerage of England. All pre-1707 English titles, such as Baron Byron, are still considered to be part of the Peerage of England, while post-1800 titles are part of the Peerage of the United Kingdom and the ones in between are the Peerage of Great Britain. If we can't determine a consensus within the sources, then my opinion would be to continue describing Lovelace as English because her family heritage and peerage line are still considered specifically English; when that's combined with the fact that she was born in England, died in England and lived the majority of her life in England, I think it would be modern revisionism to regard her as anything else.

That is, however, just my opinion and if the sources consistently refer to her as British then that is what the article should say. Marianna251TALK 14:41, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

This come up regularly in discussions and I understand the last compromise was to not to change English/Scottish/Welsh to British (and the other way around) just for the sake of it. MilborneOne (talk) 18:18, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Marianna251TALK 23:02, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Source

This recently published NYT obituary may be useful.104.163.147.121 (talk) 23:50, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

The Infobox scientist's information

I think that in the information box, there aren't enough information about her jobs or her education. By reading the information box we can tell that she was married with William King-Noel and that she had children, but we don't know who were her teachers or her job or if she wrote a book, wich I think is more important to know about a scientist. Anonyme2308 (talk) 17:20, 15 July 2018 (UTC)Anonyme2308

This is something that should be raised at the talk page for the infobox. – Rhain ☔ 00:15, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

and Ada Lovelace has often been cited as the first computer programmer for this reason...

We write:

It is considered the first published algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer, and Ada Lovelace has often been cited as the first computer programmer for this reason.[69][70]

but the sources for this are distinctly iffy (New Scientist and a rather populist-sounding book). And the "Controversy over extent of contributions" section rather disagrees William M. Connolley (talk) 10:50, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Reading between the lines, that quoted article text says "Some people say this (but it's not a given)." Even if her contributions are not that great it's not incompatible with many people holding her up (erroneously) as the first programmer. And how "iffy" is the New Scientist? GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:51, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

The NS is really very iffy indeed for anything like this, which doesn't have clear sources. and if there were clear sources, we wouldn't be using NS.

Given the "Controversy" section, I don't see how "It is considered the first published algorithm" can be allowed to stay, unqualified William M. Connolley (talk) 15:43, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Article improvement (continued) – inviting comments

I propose to improve this article by carrying out a major copyedit of the text, but with no substantial changes to the structure, other than minor paragraph alterations within the existing sections. As you may be aware, I've already made a start but progress has been hampered. See above section. I apparently need to gain consensus to proceed, so I'm now inviting tangible comments on my proposal. This should not be a vote, just a place to voice opinions. Please refer to the most recent edits that I've made to the article in the past couple of days to see the kind of alterations I'm talking about. I am not accustomed to this type of resistance so may not have followed the correct procedure for which I have been duly chastised! Rodney Baggins (talk) 07:47, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

If you haven't, you could "advertise" at some of the interested WikiProjects, sometimes it helps. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:26, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Commented above. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 21:52, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

BRD copyedit

Hello world. I've made a few minor edits to this article recently which have not been challenged. So far so good. Yesterday I decided to be Bold and I published a full copyedit of the Early life section, which was swiftly Reverted by a conscientious objector who didn't care for my contribution. According to the WP:BRD policy, I now have to Discuss here. All I can say is, "Trust me. I'm a professional copy editor!" I wish to improve this article, and I'm determined to go ahead. In fact it would be great if it could one day be reclassified as A-class or Good, but that's for the future.

I shall proceed slowly with detailed explanations of my every move so that each minor tweak can be questioned (yes tedious). No offence intended to any previous authors of this article, but there is definitely room for improvement. Let's see how we go. Feedback welcome (from more than five hundred watchers). I've arranged for a 3-month page protection so we won't be plagued by vandalism.

For a start, does anyone else think the Early life section should be called Childhood? It might be argued that "early life" extends beyond the age of 18... Rodney Baggins (talk) 10:22, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

If you break the copy edits down into smaller edits, with edit summaries explaining each, they likely will not be reverted en masse. With edits such as this, it is difficult to decipher what has been changed, which I imagine is why you were reverted though I cannot read Xxanthippe's mind. This is quite a high-profile article (3,000+ views p/day), so taking the copy edits slowly is preferred. Childhood and early life are probably interchangeable in this case, so either seems fine. Hrodvarsson (talk) 01:11, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

As I am making a number of small edits in succession, if you disagree with an edit lower down the list, please manually revert with appropriate comment so we can discuss as appropriate. Rodney Baggins (talk) 21:58, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Restructure 1st/2nd/3rd paras (of Childhood section) into 2 paragraphs of roughly equal length. I've effectively split the middle (2nd) paragraph, moving first portion of text up to join 1st para and the remaining text down to join 3rd para. Resulting 2 paragraphs work out as follows: 1st para concerns start of Ada's life when Byron was still around; 2nd para concerns Byron's departure from England and what happened next (his character deformation, his non-relationship with Ada, his death).

The section below is copied from my talk page to here, which is its proper place.

Hi there, Have you checked my earlier copyedit to Ada Lovelace yet? As you reverted it, I thought I'd give you time to come back to me on it, but haven't heard anything from you yet. Please give me some feedback. As I stated in my follow-on edit, I'm a proofreader/copyeditor by profession, so I'm basically interested in improving the text and presentation of wiki articles. Ada Lovelace has been in the local news a lot lately as the people of Nottinghamshire are campaigning to get her on the £50 note, hence my current quest to improve her article. You should be able to see from my previous edits over the past couple of weeks that I can be trusted! So if you're not happy with my entire copyedit of the Early life section, then would you rather I did it in small stages (more transparent but also rather tedious)? By the way, I arranged for the article to be semi-protected for the next 3 months as it was being plagued by IP vandalism. Cheers, Rodney Baggins (talk) 21:49, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

An editor who is challenged after making substantial edits to an important and well-established article should follow WP:BRD and discuss the matter on the talk page of the article, not here: see the top of this page. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:43, 5 December 2018 (UTC).

You're the only person who's objected to my edits so I wanted to open a personal dialog with yourself, but failing that I will proceed more cautiously. I don't see the point in opening up a discussion on the Ada talk page that would basically just say: Any objections to me improving this article? What would be the point in that!? Rodney Baggins (talk) 07:55, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The point is that it would be consistent with WP:BRD. There are many other watchers of the page apart from you and I. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:45, 7 December 2018 (UTC).

@Rodney Baggins. WP:BRD means Bold, Revert, Discuss. It is not WP:BRR: Bold Revert Revert. You have already breached WP:BRD by reverting a revert. Such behavior could be construed as WP:Edit warring which down the track could lead to sanctions. I suggest that you go back to stage zero and first obtain approval for any structural changes to the article you wish to make. When that is agreed you can then proceed to content changes piece by piece. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:17, 7 December 2018 (UTC).

@Xxanthippe. I am aware of what WP:BRD means and have followed it by trying to open a discussion here, where, as you can see, there has been no particular interest. Do you have a personal conflict of interest here? I have an interest in Ada Lovelace, it's not personal, but I'm keen on improving how she is presented on Wikipedia, which is basically what I do, and as far as I'm aware, what I am free to do. But you are making it very difficult for me and so far you seem to be intent on preventing me from doing so. I repeat You're the only person who's objected to my edits – which might be construed as disruptive editing. But I have been proceeding cautiously, making minor alterations for the good, and have invited the community to challenge each one, but so far no-one else appears to be faintly interested or concerned. And for the record, I'm not proposing to make any changes to the section/subsection structure, just to work on each individual subsection. Improvements therein may involve slight reworking of the paragraph arrangements, but nothing major.

Having said all that, I shall give you the benefit of the doubt, and call a halt now, invite a new discussion, sit on it for a week, then proceed as appropriate. Bearing in mind that Christmas is just round the corner, this probably means we're looking at January. What a shame to waste the vandalism protection that I arranged, for which I have received no credit. However, I shall not move the copy back to stage zero, as you have suggested, as I have spent rather a lot of time on this and have only made genuine beneficial changes which have not otherwise been challenged. Rodney Baggins (talk) 07:27, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Xxanthippe why are you hassling that guy? Why do you say there are substantial changes? I haven't microscopically examined the diffs but everything I see so far looks like generally good copyediting. Substantial changes imho means adding and removing information. Has that happened?

Rodney Baggins, as far as I can tell you're doing good work.

Xanthippe, please stop reverting unless there's a significant concrete problem with an edit (in which case describe the problem on the talk page). If there's a small problem then just fix it.

Rodney, one possible compromise (as others suggested) is to break down large edits into groups of smaller ones so they can be reviewed individually. There's no need to wait long periods between edits though. It's fine to make several consecutive ones. Just write an edit summary for each one saying what it does, unless that's obvious. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 21:48, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you 173.228.123.166, much appreciate your support. I'm about to contribute again below. By the way, you really should register properly and give yourself a username as you seem to know what you're talking about. Rodney Baggins (talk) 10:45, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

WP: Copy editing

WP:Copy editing, when needed, is welcome but it must be consistent with the subtleties and nuances of the subject to which it applied. In the case of the popular and much edited Ada Lovelace article there are several complexities that are dealt with well by the formal biographical sources for the article, and those should be born in mind when editing. A particular issue is the naming of the many people that appear in the narrative, which has been discussed on the talk page. The complexity is exacerbated by the British system of titles that were frequent in the aristocratic milieu in which Ada moved. Ada herself had at least three different styles of address throughout her life, with formal and informal variants. Also did her husband and some of her relatives. In a previous version of the article, there was a list of these, which I will restore in due course to give clarity to the reader. The solution adopted by contemporary biographers, and in particular Ada's, is to used the same name for the same person throughout the narrative. Unfortunately, this is not done in the article. She is called "Ada Byron", "Ada Lovelace", "Lady King", "Lady Lovelace" and "Lovelace"(which is incorrect and sexist as that term refers to her husband alone and thereby attributes her achievements to him). They are all basically correct (except for the last) but are confusing for the new reader. The edit that I reverted [6] changes "Annabella" to :"his wife". Well, she was his wife as further reading reveals, but the use of multiple terms for the same person, confuses the reader and is inconsistent with modern biographical writing, where clarity is paramount. Also, why was the perfectly good blue link to Deed of separation removed? There are other issues that I don't have time to go into. I find of the edits proposed so far, a few detrimental, a few beneficial and many doing little but churn the article to minimal purpose.

[7] Remember that Wikipedia is a collaborative, consensus-based environment. Be bold in making changes, but if you find that your work has been undone by another editor, visit the talk page of the article and start a discussion before reinstating it. According to Butcher's Copy-editing, "The good copyeditor is a rare creature: an intelligent reader and a tactful and sensitive critic; someone who cares enough about perfection of detail to spend time checking small points of consistency in someone else's work but has the good judgement not to waste time or antagonize the author by making unnecessary changes.^[2] Xxanthippe (talk) 05:59, 8 December 2018 (UTC).

Have you found any actual errors in Rodney Baggins' edits? If yes, what are they? That "Annabella" to "his wife" edit looks fine to me (it's obvious what the referent is). But if your issue in that edit is just with that one word, the thing to do is change that word back and explain the issue in the edit summary or talk page, not revert RB's whole edit. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 07:40, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

@Xxanthippe:

First of all, thank you for your long awaited contribution to a meaningful discussion. Shame it took an ANI-notice to get to this point.

Secondly, thank you for tutoring me in the basics of copyediting, a subject about which I clearly know nothing, having only been familiar with it for the past twenty years or more.

Thirdly, your specifics are misdirected and confused.

A particular issue is the naming of the many people that appear in the narrative... – I have not made any changes to the naming of the people in the narrative, other than to change "his wife" to "Annabella" (for instance) – note that Surtsicna did make naming changes yesterday, but you did not challenge it (see below)
The edit that I reverted [6] changes "Annabella" to :"his wife". – it was your revert that changed "Annabella" to "his wife" – it was my original edit (which you reverted) that changed "his wife" to "Annabella" in order to prevent the use of multiple terms for the same person which confuses the reader – therefore your logic is inverted and you are crediting my changes as your own, and vice versa
Also, why was the perfectly good blue link to Deed of separation removed? – I added the blue link myself [8] and you reverted it so again you have got your knickers in a twist. Interestingly, Surtsicna spotted the redirect and corrected it in his edit yesterday (see below).
I find the edits proposed so far ... [do] little but churn the article to minimal purpose – the whole purpose of copyediting is to enhance the reader's understanding of the article, improve the word flow, iron out ambiguities, etc. etc. so making the statement "churning the article to minimal purpose" demonstrates that you just don't like it which is not an argument to use in talk page discussions.
a few detrimental, a few beneficial – so challenge the "detrimental" ones individually, and give me some credit for the "beneficial" ones FFS!

Edits made yesterday by Surtsicna: (thank you Surtsicna for your contribution by the way, some of which I disagree with but we can sort that out later) – a large number of changes were made to the Childhood section in Surtsicna's edits, so how come that was OK with you, but my previous work has been repeatedly challenged? It is very difficult not to take this whole thing personally and my patience is wearing rather thin. I see that you have been watching this article for over a decade, but you have not made any substantial contributions to its content, you just seem to be intent on preventing others from doing so. Like I said before, I'll leave off for a good few days (I have plenty of other things I can be getting on with), but I shall be back at some point and I expect to be treated with a little more respect on my return. Rodney Baggins (talk) 11:03, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

References

^ https://findingada.com/about/who-was-ada/
^ Judith Butcher, Caroline Drake and Maureen Leach, Butcher's Copy-editing, Cambridge University Press, fourth edition, 2006, p. 4.

Semi-protected edit request on 15 May 2019

This edit request to Ada Lovelace has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

recognise should be spelled recognize Drmilhous (talk) 14:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Not done: She was English, so per MOS:ENGVAR it should be "recognise". aboideau^talk 14:42, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:37, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Arms

It looks as if she, her mother and her maternal grandmother would all have been heraldic heiresses, but sources on how Ada marshalled her arms are hard to find. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 22:35, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

This article has been edited by people who do not approve of the use of titles and presumably arms. You may encounter opposition (but not from me). Xxanthippe (talk) 22:38, 20 October 2019 (UTC).

Could you be more specific? Titles are used throughout the article. I doubt, however, that any biographer of Ada discusses her arms, so the topic probably should not come up in this article. She is, after all, notable as a mathematician. Surtsicna (talk) 22:49, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

The Name

Isn't her name supposed to appear 'Augusta King'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.116.89.165 (talk) 09:42, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

In Popular Culture - 2020s

For someone to add who currently has edit privileges:

Lovelace and Babbage appear as characters in Series 12 of the BBC series Doctor Who. Sylvie Briggs portrays Lovelace in the episode "Spyfall - Part Two".[9] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.25.6.30 (talk) 19:36, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The article presently (2020) flag for "Weasel Words" I see no mention here of what words where in the article qualify as such.

The article presently (2020) flag for "Weasel Words" I see no mention here of what words where in the article qualify as such. I find no example of any after carefully scanning the first "page": the paragraphs of writing before "Biography". I suspect vandalism and will therefore take down the notice. Please provide a couple of examples. (really there should be a lot more than two examples, but I'm willing to give the benefit of a doubt, as long as someone writes a sincere rationalization and without time and resources to do the replacement of "weasel words themselves"Tumacama (talk) 22:14, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Ignore it. It's just a drive-by edit by a 1 edit IP. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:22, 31 August 2020 (UTC).

Ada/Babbage/Wolfram

Today, a single edit WP:spa has linked[10] a blog entry on the story of Ada and Babbage to the article.[11] Usually, Wikipedia does not accept self-published sources like blogs as reliable sources, due to the lack of editorial oversight. However, this blog is persuasively and entertainingly written by Stephen Wolfram, one of the masters of contemporary mathematical computing. As well as giving a comprehensive account of Ada's and Babbage's personal lives, it analyses Ada's mathematical contributions with authority and finds that her concept of the possibilities of computing was superior to that of Babbage. The blog is a major contribution to the history of computing. It does full justice to Ada and should be read by all readers of the Wikipedia article (it also contains a better picture of Ada than the Wikipedia article does). Xxanthippe (talk) 10:04, 13 December 2015 (UTC).

This is a very good find. Thank you so much for sharing this. Mejorasi723 (talk) 17:54, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Imprecise Data and Sensationalism

The article suffers from sensationalism and from incorrect data. The majority of scholars agree that Ada is not the first computer programmer and that she mostly revised works by Charles Babbage. This has nothing to do with sexism, but with historical truth. No one is denying Ada's place in history, but the information given must be precise. The only author who defends Ada's title as the first programmer is Stephen Wolfram (2016). Idea Makers: Personal Perspectives on the Lives & Ideas of Some Notable People. Wolfram Media. pp. 45–98. ISBN 978-1-57955-003-5, which is not an academic contribution. Please, avoid making claims that are not underpinned by any actual evidence.--86.6.148.125 (talk) 16:13, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Rather more than just Wolfram... See Scientific American, NewScientist,Interesting Engineering, James Essinger's book Ada's Algorithm, and many more. Lovelace biographer Ursula Martin says that Lovelace was the very first to publish "far-reaching" visions of what computing might be capable of.[12] Both Martin and Essinger describe a reactionary sexist "pushback" to listing Lovelace as the first programmer. They agree she was visionary. I don't see any benefit to the world by pinching the reactionary sexist viewpoint and mirroring it here on Wikipedia. Binksternet (talk) 16:31, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Interesting: not even a single scholarly contribution. What about "The Bride of Science", by Benjamin Wolley (2015) or "The Difference Engine Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer" By Doron Swade 2002. These are scholarly contributions. You're trying to make this a gender issue, it is not. --86.6.148.125 (talk) 17:16, 18 October 2021 (UTC) Binksternet --86.6.148.125 (talk) 17:32, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

For further readings, if you like: https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/technology/visionaries/ada-lovelace-original-and-visionary-but-no-programmer/--86.6.148.125 (talk) 17:20, 18 October 2021 (UTC)--86.6.148.125 (talk) 17:32, 18 October 2021 (UTC) Binksternet --86.6.148.125 (talk) 17:32, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Also to notice that in almost all your sources, authors are very sensitive about the topic and suggest that she might have been (with perhaps, maybe, she better appreciated), etc. Not a great publicity for what you think, and in fact you are so afraid of the truth that have locked the possibility to edit the article. Binksternet --86.6.148.125 (talk) 17:32, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The Article contains spurious claims about Ada Lovelace's contribution to computer programming. As shown by Benjamin Woolley and Doron Swade, Babbage wrote computer programs for the "Analytic Engine" as early as 1836/37, that is 7 years prior to Note G. The reference in the opening sentence does not refer to any current scholarship on the topic, please, stop making this a gender issue: it is not--86.6.148.125 (talk) 17:12, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Stop ignoring the obvious gender issue, supported by a wide range of sources. Was Lovelace the first computer programmer? Maybe not—depends on who is writing about her. But is sexism part of the picture? Indubitably. Binksternet (talk) 18:53, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Your first edit to this article was to remove "sexism" from a header. Following that, you set up a red herring argument such that, if Lovelace is not the first programmer, then sexism cannot be true. Those two issues are completely separate! The attempt to disprove sexism will ultimately fail due to the large number of sources talking about it relative to Lovelace's life and career. Binksternet (talk) 19:28, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

"Scientific American presents ideas that have already been published in the peer-reviewed technical literature." Please refer to the original sources, that should be cited in the articles. Thanks. Grimes2 (talk) 20:13, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

New Scientist's source are "bloggers". That's not really reliable. Interesting Engineering's source are "many people (agree)". Grimes2 (talk) 21:16, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Reverts

User:Xxanthippe, I disagree with your reverts. Rather than reverting good faith high-effort edits with apparently correct content, maybe we can find better references for the material? History is a pretty well-known source so, if it is true that their blog post is not reputable, we still should be able to find the original source for these facts. Caleb Stanford (talk) 16:31, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

The content is not considered correct (even apparently) unless it is based on a reliable source. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:32, 25 November 2021 (UTC).

I don't think my point came across to you, so nevermind. Caleb Stanford (talk) 01:18, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 February 2022

This edit request to Ada Lovelace has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The statement: "As of November 2015, all new British passports have included an illustration of Lovelace and Babbage on pages 46 and 47.[122][123]" Should be changed to "As of November 2015, all new British passports have included an illustration of Lovelace and Babbage on pages 30 and 31.[122][123]" Cross check to confirm with reference [123] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2015/nov/03/new-uk-passport-design-in-pictures 92.40.175.223 (talk) 02:06, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Partly done: I just removed the page numbers entirely, as they were not found in either source, and the page numbers don't really add anything to the understanding of the topic. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:50, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Poorly written, repetitive

The overall feeling of this article is that it was written by an inexperienced writer (or writers). There are numerous examples of conversational prose, awkward sentences, random facts thrown into paragraphs, etc.

The observation that Lovelace might have written the first example of a computer program is repeated several times.

This should be completely rewritten or heavily edited by a capable writer who fully understands the topic. Mluthanen (talk) 20:18, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Popular Culture

Ada was the name of the AI robot in Ex Machina. 2600:1700:6906:3000:48FB:1851:A5F5:9BB5 (talk) 01:58, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 September 2022

This edit request to Ada Lovelace has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

In the Commemoration section, add the ADA research group (https://ada.liacs.nl/) הדרשביט (talk) 00:07, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Not done - the commemoration section is long enough and ada.liacs.nl is irrelevant as it doesn't have a Wikipedia article - it's not famous enough. Sorry. A diehard editor (talk | edits) 08:40, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Why is this?

What is [13] about Xxanthippe? How is a major GPU microarchitecture different from a programming language or micro-satellite? —DIYeditor (talk) 01:44, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Commercial spam. What do other editors think? Xxanthippe (talk) 02:22, 21 September 2022 (UTC).

Look at the pageviews at the top (note today on the lower graph, and that the top graph is logarithmic). This will have a broader impact on the public than anything else listed in the section including the programming language. How is a micro-satellite not also "commercial spam" if this is? —DIYeditor (talk) 02:34, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Seems in line with every other item in the section and is not phrased as an advertisement or a plug, and links to another mainspace article supported by reliable secondary sources. "Commercial spam" is a bit of an extreme classification here. Mr. Spink ^{^{talk★contribs}} 04:35, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Lady Byron as mathematician

The second paragraph begins "Ada Byron was the only legitimate child of poet Lord Byron and mathematician Lady Byron.[5]". I have seen no evidence that Lady Byron was a mathematician, and I think the word "mathematician" should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.159.18.215 (talk) 12:23, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Deleted it. Interestingly enough, the citation after the citation directly attached to that is The Byron Journal's "Poetical Science" by Betty Toole, which almost uniquely among written sources(?) claims Lady Byron was a mathematician, but that paper seems to be using the word in the sense of "person who knows how to do math", Not quite what we would call a mathematician. Dingolover6969 (talk) 04:23, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Done (I think I have to mark it this way to get it to archive?) Dingolover6969 (talk) 10:11, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Lovelace- NVIDIA GPU

Under the "In popular culture" section of this article, under "2020s," there is a point:

In 2021, Nvidia named their upcoming GPU architecture (to be released in 2022), "Ada Lovelace", after her.

The GPU is already released. Perhaps it would be more sensible to now say,

In 2021, Nvidia named their upcoming GPU architecture (released September 20, 2022), "Ada Lovelace", after her.

This is just a request to rephrase this now that the GPU has been released. As a user with less than ten edits, I cannot make this change to a semi-protected article.

Thanks! Happy0246 (talk) 10:26, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Done by another editor, User:Randomdudewithinternet, since you made this suggestion https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ada_Lovelace&diff=1117079229&oldid=1116630749 Dingolover6969 (talk) 10:16, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

?

Fourth paragraph starts: When she was a teenager (18),

Why not simply When she was a eighteen,? 149.20.252.132 (talk) 17:40, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Indeed yes. WP:Bebold and make the change yourself. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:28, 4 November 2022 (UTC).

@Xxanthippe You do realize that the page is protected right, and they're an IP user? bruh... lol anyways, imma do it myself cause "WP:Bebold" anyways Randomdudewithinternet (talk) 06:56, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

lol 149.20.252.132 (talk) 18:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 December 2022

This edit request to Ada Lovelace has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Hello !

I'd like to change a typo that is on this page, but cannot as my account is not approved yet.

Change "The redevelopment was part of a complex wtith Imperial Chemical House" to "The redevelopment was part of a complex with Imperial Chemical House".

There is a typo in the "with". That's all!

Thank you very much :) Lerenn (talk) 14:10, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Done Thank you for noticing! - Ïvana (talk) 14:17, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 March 2023

This edit request to Ada Lovelace has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Add permalink to Charles Babbage. Pmuntima (talk) 15:28, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Already done Already linked in the first sentence of the article. Cannolis (talk) 18:41, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

First published computer program

This ist wrong, because Menabrea published some simple "programs" before in a Swiss Journal (in French). Correct: First published complex computer program. Grimes2 (talk) 12:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Are we going to have to start with the "What source says this?" game again? E Eng 19:09, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes. https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=466 extract of Hook, Diana H.; Norman, Jeremy M. (2002). Origins of Cyberspace. Norman Pub. ISBN 978-0-930405-85-4. and https://www.milestone-books.de/pages/books/003649/luigi-federico-menabrea-charles-babbage/notions-sur-la-machine-analytique-de-m-charles-babbage-in-bibliotheque-universelle-de-geneve Grimes2 (talk) 06:34, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The historyofinformation link doesn't contain the word complex, so I don't see how it could support the change you seem to want. The second link is to an antiquarian bookseller's site. E Eng 04:48, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok. Maybe something for the controversy section? Grimes2 (talk) 05:24, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I give up. E Eng 05:48, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

PhD RS

I think,a thesis is a reliable source, because it has been appraised by two independent professors. Here it is a Harvard thesis, known for exzellent scientific quality. Grimes2 (talk) 17:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm the last person to knock Harvard scholarship, but unpublished dissertations must be used with great care if at all, and only for very good reason. They often contain errors that are corrected later if the dissertation gets published. Collier published plenty of stuff later, so if he stood by this characterization it will be found elsewhere. E Eng 17:24, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Every PhD thesis has been published. It's available in several libraries. Collier's thesis has also been published later a second time afaik. ISBN 9780824000451 Grimes2 (talk) 17:33, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, my fault for mixing two different uses of the word published. In general in Wikipedia use, published means available somewhere, somehow, even if it's behind a paywall or you have to travel to a special library to see the only existing physical copy. In the more usual scholarly sense (and the sense in which I was using it above), it means converted to monograph form after going though the usual vetting, reviewing, and editing that monographs undergo. E Eng 19:51, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I see. Here the monograph series link: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/documents/aa110069380/thesis-entitled-the-little-engines-that-couldve-the-calculating-machines-of-charles-babbage and online http://robroy.dyndns.info/collier/ Again published: https://www.google.de/books/edition/The_Little_Engines_that_Could_ve/7qUmAAAAMAAJ?hl=de Grimes2 (talk) 01:55, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Two of your links are just automated recognition that the dissertation exists, and the third is where some private person, for some reason, put the text online. None of that is publication in the second of the two senses I gave above. E Eng 05:59, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I try to understand. The publication has an ISBN and a publisher, but is no publication? Grimes2 (talk) 06:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I doubt, that a dissertation can easily be corrected. It is an official document. In case of plagarism the corrected dissertation has to be submitted to the university for appraisal again. Grimes2 (talk) 05:41, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

"Corrected" means that, when it's turned into a book (if it is), you fix a lot of stuff you got wrong when you submitted it for your PhD. E Eng 05:59, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:Scholarship states, that dissertations are reliable, but you have to be cautious with primary sources. This is mot the case in the deleted citation. Grimes2 (talk) 06:40, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I stand corrected: Garland did eventually publish the thesis as a book. So if you want to use it, use the book, since that will have gone through the usual editorial process. E Eng 08:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Done Grimes2 (talk) 10:47, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

What you did is use the same quote from the 1970 dissertation, but change the cite to the 1990 book. That's lunacy. You need to get the 1990 book and see what it actually says. E Eng 19:09, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:Scholarship Dissertations – Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a doctorate, and which are publicly available (most via interlibrary loan or from Proquest), can be used but care should be exercised, as they are often, in part, primary sources. Grimes2 (talk) 14:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

For god's sake, this is getting ridiculous. We would never use the dissertation when there's a later book version available. Now quote for us what the book says or stop wasting our time. Jesus. E Eng 04:46, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes ridiculos. As I already daid, it's impossible to correct a dissertation without repeating the whole review process at university. It's an official document. You can publish it again as is + own preface, Grimes2 (talk) 05:20, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

It's now clear that nothing useful can come out of this discussion. Sorry. E Eng 05:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Found it: p. 181. However, judging by the one mention of Collier in Christopher Hollings, Ursula Martin & Adrian Rice (2017) "The early mathematical education of Ada Lovelace", BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, 32:3, 221-234, doi:10.1080/17498430.2017.1325297 (same triumvirate as the 2018 book we list under Further Reading), Collier's view of Lovelace is extreme. This 2010 opinion article in The Economist apparently drew attention to Collier's criticism. I think if we are to mention Collier by name in the article, it should be in the context of a survey of views such as Hollings, Martin and Rice's book. Yngvadottir (talk) 10:28, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Collier's "extreme view" is derived from the later added preface. The preface is not part of the original dissertation and therefore not reviewed by anybody. In principle everyone could have written everything in this preface, it's not a reliable source. I propose, not to cite from that preface, only from the dissertation. From https://gradschool.unc.edu/academics/thesis-diss/guide/ordercomponents.html A preface is a statement of the author's reasons for undertaking the work and other personal comments that are not directly germane to the materials presented in other sections of the thesis or dissertation. These reasons tend to be of a personal nature. Grimes2 (talk) 12:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

The bit impugning her mental health, you mean? Since Google will only show me snippets of the Garland edition, I'll accept in good faith that that passage is from the preface. Nonetheless, that aspect of his viewpoint appears to loom large in mentions of Collier's dissertation, as part of representations of his view as lying at one extreme of assessments of Lovelace's work. Can you cite mentions other than the Economist opinion article in which Collier's position is not presented as an outlier?

I'm surprised by your statements about dissertations not being correctable and prefaces not being reliable sources for the author's views. I presume this preface was also by Collier (either explicitly, or with no other stated author)? If so, Collier is responsible for its contents and it should be presumed not to misrepresent the arguments in the rest of the book. But further, dissertations almost always undergo editing before being published as monographs; the requirements for the two kinds of publication are a bit different, the author may take the opportunity to make revisions, and the publishing house may provide an editorial review. Does the publishing house specify for this series that they publish the dissertations without changes? The font suggests that possibility, as does the identical number of pages in the OCLC-indexed listings of the dissertation (publisher listed as Harvard, on microfilm: OCLC 25810591) and the 1990 publication (publisher listed as Garland: OCLC 22767490), but in my experience that's an exception. (Same 9 pages of prefatory matter, too; is there really a new and different preface in the Garland publication?) In any case, you seem to be conflating two forms of publication. A thesis/dissertation as published by a university (or in some places, the publication printed on demand before the defense), which the thesis committee signs off on for the candidate to receive the degree, is indeed an official document, with a copy retained by the university's library. But subsequent republications outside the university are distinct. That's why we have a separate Template:Cite thesis, which takes the institution as the publisher. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:48, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Hard to believe p.181 is the preface, but anyway it doesn't matter. Someday the criticism/controversy stuff will get cleaned up, and in the meantime this is just one of the several miscellaneous comments parked there. E Eng 02:19, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

We are talking about another citation in the preface of the 1990 publication and not the current article citation. Grimes2 (talk) 04:59, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I personally prefer facts over opinions. The 1990 preface is a personal opinion. The 1970 dissertation has also a preface, but with another text. https://treasures.scss.tcd.ie/miscellany/TCD-SCSS-X.20121208.002/TheLittleEnginesThatCouldve-TheCalculatingMachinesOfCharlesBabbage.pdf Of cause, it's up to author to change the preface for the later publication. This might be a reaction to the reception of the thesis. In the series "Harvard dissertations in the history of science", the body of the dissertations seems to be unaltered, but with "with new preface and errata". Grimes2 (talk) 05:25, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Your talk of facts vs. opinions is nonsense, because any discussion of the value A.L.'s work is necessarily going to be substantially subjective opinion. I'm back to what I said before: nothing useful can come from this discussion, because your comments are completely impossible to understand, and you keep going on and on about this preface stuff. E Eng 07:15, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for not being understandable, it was something for insider. I think, the controversy section is ok now. I know, it's difficult to obtain facts, because the correspondence from Babbage to Lovelace isn't handed down. I'm a scientist, I distinguish between scientific facts and opinions (like Wikipedia). Grimes2 (talk) 07:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

If you're saying we're done with this thread, that's certainly a relief. E Eng 07:44, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Most recent research

What is wrong with including the most recent research in this article like I've done previously? I consider it vandalism to remove it without giving a reason, please state your reasons for conducting this vandalism so we can productively move forward. IndyCar1020 (talk) 16:05, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Calling it vandalism would be a bad idea. Vandalism on Wikipedia has a specific definition, and the distinction between "vandalism" and "edits you don't like" is significant. Don't do that. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:16, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Vandalism is defined by Wikipedia:Vandalism as follows: "deliberately intended to obstruct or defeat the project's purpose".

Someone that comes along and removed peer-reviewed papers without presenting an explanation and then abusing the Wikipedia system appears to me to be vandalism.

Please explain what you mean by this "would be a bad idea", and what "edits you don't like" mean here. IndyCar1020 (talk) 16:58, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

[1] ttps://findingada.com/about/who-was-ada/

[2] Judith Butcher, Caroline Drake and Maureen Leach, Butcher's Copy-editing, Cambridge University Press, fourth edition, 2006, p. 4.

[1]

[2]