Programming Language Timeline

By mylesquijano1

  • Plankalkul

    Plankalkul was designed for engineering purposes by Konrad Zuse. The name is German for, "Plan Calculus."

  • Fortran

    Fortran's original purpose was for creating scientific and engineering applications. The IBM company was the original developer of Fortran. The name Fortran stands for, "Formula Translating System."

  • MATH-MATIC

    MATH-MATIC was originally made to be an improvement over FORTRAN. A group of people made MATH-MATIC and they were all led by Charles Katz. MATH-MATIC is the marketing name for the AT-compiler.

  • Lisp

    John McCarthy started Lisp back in 1958. Lisp was originally made as a practical mathematical notation for computer programs. The name Lisp stands for List Processor.

  • COBOL

    COBOL was designed by a team of programmers called the CODASYL. Its primary purpose is for business use. COBOL stands for, "Common Business-Oriented Language."

  • RPG

    RPG is a high-level programming language for business applications. RPG stands for, "Report Program Generator." RPG was created for punch card machines and are still used today. IBM was the creator of RPG.

  • BASIC

    This programming language was created and designed by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz. The primary purpose of the program was to allow other students who were in different fields to use computers. Most students who used computers back then were in science or math fields. BASIC stands for, "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code."

  • LOGO

    LOGO was created by Wally Feurzeig in 1967. The language was originally created to teach concepts of programming related to Lisp. LOGO is related to Lisp and its name is from the Greek word logos which means "word" or "thought." The name is meant to stand out from the other programming language names.

  • B

    B is a programming language developed in 1969. I am not certain of the exact day and month but it first appeared in 1969. The main creator of the program is Ken Thompson. Thompson's coworker, Dennis Richie, helped create the program language. The program's original purpose was for creating non-numeric applications such as a language software. The acronym, B, may be a contraction for the program BCPL.

  • PASCAL

    PASCAL was designed in 1968-1969 and was created by Niklaus Wirth. PASCAL was developed to encourage good programming practices. The name PASCAL is named after a mathematician and philosipher Blaise Pascal.

  • C

    C first appeared in some time around 1969-1972. It was created by Dennis Richie and Bell Labs. It was primarily made to re-implement an operating system called Unix. They gave C that name because it is B's successor.

  • ML

    Robin Milner and other people from the University of Edinburgh created ML. ML was originally made to develop proof tactics in the LCF theorem prover. The name ML stands for metalanguage.

  • SQL

    SQL was designed for managing data held in a relational database management system, or for stream processing in a regional data stream management system. SQL was created by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce. SQL stands for, "Structured Query Language."

  • ADA

    ADA was stable to release in 2012 but first appeared in 1980. Originally it was being made by a team of people led by Jean Ichbiah. ADA stands for the first programmer named Ada Lovelace. The primary purpose of ADA is for military defense.

  • C++

    C++ first appeared in 1983 and was created by Bjarne Stroustrup. It is an upgraded version of the C programming language. The name C++ got it's name most likely for being the sequel to C.

  • Python

    Python is a high-level programming language and was made by Guido Van Rossum. Python recieved its name from "Monty Python's Flying Circus." Python is a scripting language.

  • Visual Basic

    Microsoft created Visual Basic and it was meant to be an easy to use programming language that anyone could use. Visual Basic was derived from BASIC which may be how Visual Basic recieved its name.

  • Delphi

    Delphi was originally made for being a rapid application tool for Windows. The creator of Delphi was a company called Borland. Delphi got its name by a Borland employee suggesting the name as a reference to Oracle at Delphi.

  • Java

    Java is a programming language and was originally developed by James Gosling. Its original purpose was for allowing Java code to run on all platforms that have Java. The name Java came from Java coffee.

  • Javascript

    Javascript was created by Brendan Eich. Java and Javascript are unrelated, even though they have similar names. Javascript is a general purpose programming language and is one of the key components that make up the World Wide Web.

  • PHP

    PHP was created by Rasmus Lerdorf. PHP stood for, "Personal Home Page," but now stands for, "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor." It was originally created for creating dynamic web pages.