The History of Programming Languages

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The History of Programming Languages

Posted by michael on Thursday June 17, 2004 @04:53AM from the in-the-beginning-was-the-command-line dept.

Dozix007 writes "For 50 years, computer programmers have been writing code. New technologies continue to emerge, develop, and mature at a rapid pace. Now there are more than 2,500 documented programming languages and O'Reilly has produced a poster called History of Programming Languages, which plots over 50 programming languages on a multi-layered, color-coded timeline."

17 of 684 comments (clear)

Great! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-17 04:53 · Score: 5, Funny

Now I need to go buy a 40" monitor to view the whole thing at once...
1. Re:Great! by danamania · 2004-06-17 05:28 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  You can view a much shorter timeline of it all, History according to Microsoft.
  
  One of the quotes direct from that little presentation: "Using the Altair 8800, Bill Gates and Paul Allen develop the first programming language, and begin an extraordinary, history-making journey."
  
  Good to know where it REALLY all started :)
2. Re:Great! by geoffspear · 2004-06-17 06:57 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I just invented the world's very first programming langauge myself, actually.
  It's just an abridged version of "world's first programming language only i've heard of."
  
  --
  Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
3. Re:Great! by Phurd+Phlegm · 2004-06-17 07:36 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I just invented the world's very first programming langauge myself, actually.
  It's just an abridged version of "world's first programming language only i've heard of."
  
  I never thought I'd say it, but "first post!"*
  -- * Abridged: meaning "first post where I said 'first post.'"
Wait a minute! by th1ckasabr1ck · 2004-06-17 04:55 · Score: 5, Funny

They forgot Steve++, the crappy C++ rip-off I wrote for an independant study project back in high school.
From "The Tao of Programming" by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · 2004-06-17 05:00 · Score: 5, Funny

The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler.

The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now their are ten thousand languages.

Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao.

But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it.

--

Technoli
Do we blame the acid? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-17 05:00 · Score: 5, Funny

The Forth, Logo and Smalltalk lines all start in the late Sixties.
1. Re:Do we blame the acid? by drinkypoo · 2004-06-17 05:38 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and [Unix] BSD. We don't believe this to be a coincidence.
  --Jeremy S. Anderson
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Meta Programming Language by dasmegabyte · 2004-06-17 05:02 · Score: 5, Funny

Oh what, you mean like ENGLISH?

It's a pretty good language, really. Sort of esoteric and the syntax can be inscruitable at times, but you can really get some shit accomplished with it.

--
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Incase of Slashdotting... by GillBates0 · 2004-06-17 05:03 · Score: 5, Funny

Here's a WhiteSpace script that prints the ASCII representation:

Enjoy!
/ob

--
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
ActionScript?!? by YetAnotherName · 2004-06-17 05:04 · Score: 5, Funny

ActionScript 2.0 is the newest language according to this chart. And if my manager gets ahold of this, I'll end up having to program in it by the month's end!

After all, to managers, "newer, and therefore better." *sigh*
1. Re:ActionScript?!? by Speare · 2004-06-17 05:18 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  And if my manager gets ahold of this, I'll end up having to program in it by the month's end!
  Don't worry. He'll hand it to Human Resources, and ask that they be on the lookout for candidates with six years of ActionScript 2.0 experience.
  And then you'll lose your job to some twit who claims seven years experience in ActionScript 1.0, 2.0 *and* 3.0.
  
  --
  [ .sig file not found ]
A half centry of coding! by rocjoe71 · 2004-06-17 05:10 · Score: 5, Funny

For 50 years, computer programmers have been writing code.
For 49.5 years, computer programmers have been saying "but it worked on *my* computer"!

--
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Circular... by Unnngh! · 2004-06-17 05:14 · Score: 4, Funny

There's a lot of crossover between the languages, and a lot of hybrid influences. In fact, some of these seem to play back into each other. I predict that in another 50 years, the chart will have completed its loop and there will be only one language:
Fortran 2060!
Re:Reminds me of by WarriorPoet42 · 2004-06-17 05:14 · Score: 4, Funny

RTA:

FORTRAN I begot ALGOL 58 begot ALGOL 60 begot CPL begot BCPL begot B begot C begot C++

And it was good.
Re:VMs will solve this issue by Tarantolato · 2004-06-17 05:16 · Score: 4, Funny

At some point at VM, be it JVM, Parrot, Mono/CLR runtime will become pervasive and become the de facto meta language, with specific developer-level langs simply being syntactic sugar.

More likely, we'll see Stupid Language Wars replaced by Stupid VM wars.

One thing that has always bothered me is the lack of standards for basic syntax.

You can have my parentheses when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

For example does anyone really lose flexibility if we say statements are delimited by ';'?

Fuck you.

--
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
Re:Delphi from VBasic?? by I_Love_Pocky! · 2004-06-17 05:57 · Score: 5, Funny

Clearly this must mean that you had not been using VB for very long. It is a well documented fact that the longer you use VB the less intelligent you become. I know the one time I was forced to use it I could feel my mind becoming numb.