Book Report: Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

One of the troubles with procrastinating on writing these reports until a month or more after I finished the book is that for the more forgettable books, I don't have very strong recollections. Ada's Algorithm is not especially memorable, and not for Essinger's lack of effort in trying to make Ada Lovelace a memorable figure.

Since Lovelace died at a fairly young age and didn't publish her own work (the primary source for Essinger's book is her letters and a commentary that she provided for Charles Babbage's essay for his difference engine), a lot of his work is speculative. Both speculating on her state of mind, as well as on the significance, more than a century later, of what Lovelace foresaw about the future of computing. Essinger sweats all over the page trying to make the case that Lovelace was the real brains of the operation and had more of a vision for what the difference engine - and, more importantly, its never-built successor, the analytical engine - could become.

However, in order to make this case, Essinger chooses to make some pretty disparaging statements about Babbage, who, you know, actually made the thing, and who was attempting, with little success, to advance his creation further. While Lovelace was a genius in her own right, that doesn't require the diminishment of Babbage, and it's important to note that any advances she made were purely on paper. I think that if the gender roles were reversed and Babbage were being denigrated for the benefit of Lovelace, then that would be pure male chauvinism. I don't think that pursuing the same strategy to raise Lovelace's stature does her or Babbage any good.

Also, it's annoying how much of the early part of the book is spent on Lord Byron, Ada's absentee father and a real piece of shit human. Ada Lovelace is cool and amazing and good, but any effort that  this book makes to further that case is not beneficial to her.