Talk:Ada Lovelace/2013/September

possible link with online publication
Ada is a feminist, multimodal, peer reviewed journal that examines the intersections of gender, new media, and technology. It is a publication of the Fembot Collective, and the product of countless hours of volunteer labor on the part of senior and junior scholars and graduate students around the world.

http://adanewmedia.org/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.22.218.36 (talk) 11:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Contradictory lede?
Reading the article, we learn that calling Ada "the first computer programmer" is at best an exaggeration. However, the first paragraph of the article conveys exactly this idea. Only when I read it again did I notice the careful phrasing, but the first impression is still the wrong one. Any reason for that?

Even worse, the general page Lovelace squarely states that she was the first computer programmer.128.178.14.162 (talk) 14:28, 26 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you are right - although Ada Lovelace may be described as "the first computer programmer" in some sources, it is obvious that this cannot literally be true, and I imagine it is written for dramatic effect. I have changed the text in the lede from "often considered" to "sometimes described as". Gandalf61 (talk) 14:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:00, 26 September 2013 (UTC).
 * I'm fine with changing "considered" to "described", but changing "often" to "sometimes" is misleading. No other person in history is more often referred to as "the first computer programmer". Searching Google for ["Ada Lovelace", "first computer programmer", -Wikipedia] gives 217,000 results. On Google Books, it gives 2,880 results. That seems more than adequate to justify using the word "often". Kaldari (talk) 23:26, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia goes by scholarly authority, not by popularity contests. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:35, 27 September 2013 (UTC).
 * Here are some scholarly sources for "often":
 * Computers: Concepts and Applications, p. 226: "Ada Lovelace is often credited with being the first computer programmer."
 * Introduction to Computer Mathematics, p. 71: "Ada Lovelace is often cited as the first computer programmer."
 * Introduction to the Art of Programming Using Scala, p. 4: "Ada Lovelace is often referred to as the first programmer..."
 * Kaldari (talk) 02:11, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this research, I wish more editors of Wikipedia were as conscientious as you, but "sometimes" still seems adequate. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:15, 27 September 2013 (UTC).
 * "Sometimes" makes it sound like it is incidental. In actuality, it is the primary reason for her modern notability. The first time most people hear about Ada Lovelace, it is generally as the world's "first computer programmer" (regardless of how accurate that statement is). She certainly isn't famous for her mathematics, and few people know or care that she was related to Lord Byron. Kaldari (talk) 06:02, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Since more scholar sources are using "often", that word is more adequate. Diego (talk) 09:50, 27 September 2013 (UTC)