I spent last night, like many recently, riffing in Scratch to Emma’s direction. You might wonder what the goal of that would be with a 3 year old – but its simple – programming can be – and is – fun. While we play there on the laptop – Emma has no idea that we’re programming – just that we’re being creative in a way that is similar to when we play music, or color, or sing and dance, or build with our legos. Next step is to get her a keyboard and mouse she can tear apart if so inspired. Like her own ukulele, or her lego brick creations, what she’ll come up with on her own is bound to be awesome.

I mention this because, as the title of the post says, yesterday was Ada Lovelace day. Ada Lovelace was a mathematician and can be considered the world’s first computer programmer. She was born in 1815.

For those not in the industry, it probably comes as some kind of shock that the person considered a computer programmer is a woman. That shock is no doubt due to the fact that the industry has so few women participating in it. It wasn’t always so. And it suffers because of it.

Here are some good reads and links:

Kimberly Blessing: Honoring Ada, Inspiring Women (the story of women in computer programming is commonly taught to begin and end with Ada – which is very incorrect)

guardian.co.uk: Let’s hear it for women in technology

Aaron Swartz: Margo Seltzer – on the creator of BerkleyDB.

KathySierra tweet on women who have made a difference in tech: Just a few of the tech women who made/make a diff: @whitneyhess @avantgame @xenijardin @zephoria @dori @burningbird @maryhodder @nicolesimon

findingada: Ada Lovelace Day