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Physical Motion in the Difference Engine
A History of Computer Programming Languages
Encyclopedia Britannica - Difference Engine
Built by Charles Babbage, the difference engine used physical motion as a programming language. It was complex for its time, being able to do many calculations involving a number of variables and could temporarily hold data. However, it could only perform one operation. -
Electronic Signals with the ENIAC
A History of Computer Programming LanguagesComputer History Museum - ENIACBuilt by the US Government after its proposal from physicist John Mauchly, ENIAC used a programming language based on electronic signals. It wasn't slowed down by mechanical parts, but it was built on the same principles of Babbage's engine. This meant that it could only "program" by presetting switches, and the entire system had to be rewired for each new "program". It was a very tedious process, but the ENIAC had run more calculations than all mankind had done before it was built. -
John Von Neumann's "shared-program technique" and "conditional control transfer"
A History of computer Programming LanguagesJohn Von Neumann developed two important concpets that directly affected the development of computer programming. "Shared-program technique" allowed computer hardware to stay simple and have complex instructions control the hardware instead of hand-wiring programs. The "conditional control transfer"gave rise to the notion of subroutines (small code blocks that could be jumped to), the use of logic statements, and the idea of "libraries" (blocks of code that could be used over and over). -
Short Code
A History of Computer Programming LanguagesIEEE Computer Society - Short CodeThe first example fo a high-level programming lanugage, Short Code was proposed by John W. Mauchly in July 1949. It was the first language for an electronic device. It required programmers to changed statements into 1's and 0's by hand, but it was the first step towards the complex programming languages of today. -
A-0 - The first compiler
A History of Computer Programming LanguagesHistory of Computers and Computing - First Compiler of Grace HopperIn 1951, Grace Hopper developed her first compiler for the Sperry-Rand computer and called it the A-0 system. A compiler turns statements into 1's and 0's so the computer can understand it. This leads to faster programming and less work by hand. -
FORTRAN - first of major languages
A History of Computer Programming LanguagesFORTRAN, which stood for FORmula TRANslating system, was designed at IBM for scientific computing. It provided programmers low-level access to computer innards. The basic types of data in use today, such as logical variables (TRUE/FALSE) and integer, real, and double-precision numbers, started in FORTRAN. However, FORTRAN was not good at handling input and output. -
LISP
A History of Computer Programming LanguagesIn 1958, John McCarthy of MIT created LISP (LISt Processing) language. Designed for Artificial Intelligence research, the original release of LISP had essentially no syntax and used parse trees instead, and the only basic data it used was lists. LISP syntax is known as "Cambridge Polish", and LISP still remains in use today. -
Algol - the root of Pascal and C
A History of Computer Programming LanguagesIn 1958, the Algol language was created by a committee for scientific use. Not only was it the root of Pascal and C, but it was the first language with formal grammer (known as Backus-Naar Form). Algol had some novel concepts, but it became bloated and difficult to use. -
Pascal
A History of Computer Programming LanguagesThe development of Pascal began in 1968 by Niklaus Wirth, beign developed mainly as a teaching tool, such as a debugger and editing system. Pascal combined many of the best features from COBOL, FORTRAN, and ALGOL while cleaning up irregularities and oddball statements. The combination of input/output and solid mathematical features made it a highly successful language. -
C and Unix
A History of Computer Programming LanguagesIn 1972, Dennis Ritchie developed C for the new Unix system being created at the time. C's direct ancestors are B and BCPL, but it is very similar to Pascal. C was hard to read while being fast and powerful, and it fixed most of the mistakes Pascal had. This converted many former Pascal users to C. -
C++
The History of Computer Programming LanguagesHistory of C++In the late 1970's and early 1980's, a new programming method called Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) was being developed. Bjarne Stroustrup developed C++ after working with Simula 67, the first object-oriented language, to be very useful but too slow for practical use. He developed "C with Classes", which was then changed to C++ in 1983 -
Java - a truly object-oriented language
A History of Computer Programming LanguagesOracle - The History of Java TechnologyIn 1991, a group of Sun Microsystems engineers called the "Green Team" wanted to unify digital consumer devices and computers and developed Java, an object-oriented language. Their concepts to use it in the home entertainment industry was too advanced for them, but it was perfect for the Internet. In 1995, the Netscape Navigator Internet browser integrated Java in its program. Java has serious optimization issues, which causes programs to run slowly, but it is a truly object-oriented language.
