Introduction to programming languages
A programming language is a type of written language that tells computers what to do. Programming languages are used to write computer programs and computer software. A programming language is like a set of commands that tell the computer how to do things. There are many different kinds of programming languages.
Machine code
Machine code, also known as machine language, is the elemental language of computers. It is read by the computer's central processing unit (CPU), is composed of digital binary numbers and looks like a very long sequence of zeros and ones. Ultimately, the source code of every human-readable programming language must be translated to machine language by a compiler or an interpreter, because binary code is the only language that computer hardware can understand.
Assembly languages
An assembly language is a type of low-level programming language that is intended to communicate directly with a computer’s hardware. Unlike machine language, which consists of binary and hexadecimal characters, assembly languages are designed to be readable by humans.
High-level languages
A high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language elements, be easier to use, or may automate (or even hide entirely) significant areas of computing systems (e.g. memory management), making the process of developing a program simpler and more understandable than when using a lower-level language. The amount of abstraction provided defines how "high-level" a programming language is.
Fourth-generation languages
A fourth-generation language, computer programming language that is intended to be easier for users than machine languages (first-generation), assembly languages (second-generation), and the older high-level languages (third-generation). Fourth-generation languages are closer to human language than other high-level languages and are accessible to people without formal training as programmers.
Object-oriented languages
Object-oriented programming is a type of computer programming in which the objects and their interactions with one another are considered central. It is based on the concept that all items in a program such as variables, data structures, and functions should be treated as objects.
Year: 1957
Name: Fortran
Developers: John W. Backus
FORmula TRANslation is still in use today. It is a procedural language mainly used for scientific computing and numerical analysis.
The first FORTRAN compiler was created in 1954-57 by a team at IBM led by John W. Backus. This compiler was the first compiler for any High level language. The authors were worried that no one would use the language if programs written in it did not run nearly as fast as programs written in assembly language. So they made it an optimizing compiler.
Fortran WikiYear: 1959
Name: Cobol
Developers: Grace M. Hopper
Cobol was one of the first computer programming languages. The name COBOL stands for COmmon Business-Oriented Language. COBOL was created because people wanted a language they could use to describe the problems in a way that is independent of the hardware used.
Cobol WikiYear: 1964
Name: Basic
Developers: John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz
BASIC is one of the first programming languages ever to be created. It was first used as a programming language on console computers. The name Basic stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
Basic WikiYear: 1969
Name: C
Developers: Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie
The C programming language is a computer programming language that was developed to do system programming for the operating system UNIX and is an imperative programming language. It is a procedural language.
C WikiYear: 1970
Name: Pascal
Developers: Niklaus Wirth
Pascal is designed as a small, efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring. It is named after French mathematician, philosopher and physicist Blaise Pascal.
Pascal WikiYear: 1983
Name: C++
Developers: Bjarne Stroustrup
C++ was originally named "C with classes". The language was planned as an improvement on the C programming language, adding features based on object-oriented programming. Step by step, a lot of advanced features were added to the language, like operator overloading, exception handling and templates.
C++ WikiYear: 1987
Name: Perl
Developers: Larry Wall
The Perl language was first made to change text files. The programming language has been changed many times to do things in addition to changing text files like making web pages show information in a better way than before. Sometimes Perl code is written using many symbols besides letters and numbers, which can make those programs hard to read.
Perl WikiYear: 1991
Name: Python
Developers: Guido van Rossum
Python is an interpreted language. Interpreted languages do not need to be compiled to run. A program called an interpreter will run python code on any kind of computer it can run on itself. This means if the programmer needs to change the code they can quickly see the results. This also means Python is slower than a compiled language like C, because it is not running machine code directly.
Python WikiYear: 1993
Name: Ruby
Developers: Yukihiro Matsumoto
The Ruby language was designed with an emphasis on programming productivity and simplicity. In Ruby, everything is an object, including primitive data types.
Ruby WikiYear: 1995
Name: PHP
Developers: Rasmus Lerdorf
PHP is a scripting language that helps people make web pages more interactive by allowing them to do more intelligent, complex things. A website programmed with PHP can have pages that are password protected. Its structure was influenced by many languages like C, Perl, Java, C++, and even Python.
PHP WikiYear: 1995
Name: Java
Developers: James Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton
Java, which was called Oak when it was still being developed, is object oriented, meaning it is based on objects that work together to make programs do their jobs. Java code looks like C, C++, or C#.
Java WikiYear: 1995
Name: JavaScript
Developers: Brendan Eich
JavaScript is a high-level programming language; It was originally designed as a scripting language for websites but became widely adopted as a general-purpose programming language, and is currently the most popular programming language in use.
JavaScript WikiYear: 2001
Name: C#
Developers: Anders Hejlsberg
The C# language is intended to be a simple, modern, general-purpose, object-oriented programming language.
C# WikiYear: 2005
Name: Ruby on Rails
Developers: David H. Hansson
Ruby on Rails is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby. Its emergence in 2005 greatly influenced web app development, through innovative features such as seamless database table creations, migrations, and scaffolding of views to enable rapid application development.
Ruby on Rails WikiYear: 2015
Name: Rust
Developers: Graydon Hoare
Rust does not employ garbage collection. Instead, its ownership and borrowing rules manage memory, which helps empower developers to have precise control over memory allocation and deallocation for efficient resource management.
Rust Wiki