The problem is, Ada lovelace's contribution to software development are rather exaggerated, mainly down to Babbage's fondness of her. Babbage most likely did most of the work on that program.

Now, a true pioneer of software development was Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, who was one of the originators of compiled languages, and also is responsible for the first ever bug report (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H96566k.jpg).