Programming Languages Timeline

  • Plankalkul

    Created by Rasmus Lerdorf. Designed for engineering purposes, and means "Plan Calculus".
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    Programming Languages Timeline

  • Fortran

    Created by John Backus. Stands for the IBM mathematical FOrmula TRANslating system, and it was created for scientific and engineering applications.
  • MATH-MATIC

    Created by Charles Katz. Does not stand for anything and was made to be an improvement over Fortran.
  • Lisp

    Created by Steve Russell, Timothy P. Hart, and Mike Levin. Stands for LISt Processing and was originally created to be a practical mathematical notation.
  • COBOL

    Created by a committee of researchers, universities, and government. Stands for COmmon Business-Oriented Language and it was one of the first computer languages
  • RPG

    Created by IBM. Stands for Report Program Generator and made to copy punched card processing other programming languages used at the time.
  • BASIC

    Created by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz. Stands for Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Made to provide computer access to non-science students.
  • LOGO

    Created by Wally Feurzeig and Seymour Papert. Does not have an acronym and was made for education use and constructivist teaching.
  • B

    Created by Ken Thompson, does not stand for anything. Made to fit into the mini computers of the time.
  • PASCAL

    Created by Niklaus Wirth. Named after Blaise Pascal and made to encourage good programming practices such as data structuring.
  • C

    Created by Dennis Ritchie. It does not stand for anything and was made to be compatible with almost all CPU's
  • ML

    Created by Robin Milner. Stands for MetaLanguage and was made to to create proof tactics in the LCF Theorem Prover.
  • SQL

    Created by ISO/IEC. Stands for Standard Query Language and was designed for managing data in relational database management systems.
  • C++

    Created by Bjarne Stroustrup. Does not stand for anything and it was made to add on to the C language.
  • ADA

    Created by Jean Ichbiah. No acronym though it was named after Ada Lovelace, made to improve embedded and real-time systems.
  • Python

    Created by Guido van Rossum. Does not stand for anything and was made to emphasize code readability.
  • Visual Basic

    Created by Microsoft. Does not stand for anything and was made to be easy for users to learn.
  • Javascript

    Created by Communications Corporation and Mozilla Foundation. Does not stand for anything and used in browser to create dynamic and enhanced user interfaces on websites
  • Delphi

    Created by Borland. Does not stand for anything and was created for rapid application creation.
  • Java

    Created by James Gosling and Sun Microsystems. Does not stand for anything and was made to have very few dependencies on implementations.
  • PHP

    Created by Rasmus Lerdorf. Originally stood for Personaly Home Page and designed to produce dynamic webpages.