雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第7章:運轉起來(70)
Without 'conditional branching', the ability to mechanise the word IF, the grandest calculator would be no more than a glorified adding machine.
It might be thought of as an assembly line, everything being laid down from start to finish, and there being no possibility of interference in the process once started.
就只能將它看成一條流水線，從開始到結束，一切都是確定的，程序一旦開始運行，就不會有任何變化。The facility of 'conditional branching', in this model, would be analogous to specifying not only the routine tasks of the workers, but the testing, deciding and controlling operations of the management.
而在他的模型中，"條件分支"意味着機器不僅具有工人的能力，還具有識別、決策和控制的能力。
Babbage was well-placed to perceive this idea, his book On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures being the foundation of modern management.
巴貝奇對這方面問題有很深刻的理解，他的《機械製造經濟學》是現代工業管理的基礎。These ideas were a hundred years ahead of their time, and were never to be embodied in working machinery during Babbage's lifetime.
巴貝奇關於通用機器的這些想法，比他的時代超前了100年。在他有生之年，這些想法從未能夠真正實現。Government funding did not solve the problems created by his grossly over-ambitious specifications; the project was not advanced by Babbage's contempt for committees, administrators, and other scientists;
他過於野心十足的一番論述，嚇跑了政府基金，他對行政人員和其他科學家的藐視，也阻礙了他的計劃。nor did his own efforts to bring mechanical engineering to an entirely new standard, and his absorption in every theoretical and practical aspect of the work, overcome these difficulties.
儘管他通過自身努力，開創了機械過程的新時代，並且吸收了各個領域的理論和實踐知識，但這一切都沒能幫助他實現這個項目。
