"The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns, just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves." "[The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations [...], and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine."
"Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the [Analytical] Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent."
@froos I've got a hot take on this I'm afraid.. Her writing is a prototypical example of a geeky software engineer seeing things from the lens of their new technology without respect for technologies before it. She does this both for algorithmic music and weaving. If she'd have studied weaving or music in terms of what it could give computing, rather than vice-versa, who knows might have happened..
@froos I think what Ada Lovelace and the field of software engineering in general missed is that the Jacquard loom isn't about computation at all, but automation. To grasp the computation of weaving you really have to look at hand weaving. I think this is a really important historical mistake that live coding is trying to row back from, by recasting computation as something that humans are directly involved with.
@yaxu hot takes are good when they come from an informed place :) I still wouldn't be too hard on her, given that the technology she's talking about did not even exist in the real world.. but yeah it would be healthier if computation would not only be seen as a means to an end. but I guess that's not a problem with computation only, but just humans thinking more about having than being (shoutout to erich fromm)
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