Ada Lovelace is known as the world’s first computer programmer. Her work with Charles Babbage to create the Analytics Engine, an early predecessor of the modern computer, was followed by the publication of the first, most elaborate and complete programme sketched out by a programmer.

She inspired the advent of the first modern computers, which gave rise to a new profession known as coders. But it was not until the software boom of the mid-90s that the demand for coders...