The First Computer Programmer: Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron and the Countess of Lovelace, is considered the first computer programmer, despite having died in 1852 -- long before computers were actually built. Through her collaboration with Charles Babbage, Lovelace wrote "sequences of instructions" (programs) for Babbage's early mechanical computer (well, computer in theory -- it wasn't actually built until rather recently). Lovelace saw the potential of Babbage's computer as a device that could do more than arithmetic: she said, "[Babbage's computer] might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent." Here's a short biographical piece about her life and her contributions to computer science:
See also: Happy Ada Lovelace Day!