Programming Languages Timeline

Plankalkul

Jan 1, 1948

By: Konrad Zuse
For: Engineering
Pronounced: Plain Calculus

FORTRAN

Nov 1, 1953

Developed by: IBM
For: More practical alternative to assembly langauges for IBM 704 mainframe
Accronym for: The IBM Mathematical Formula Translating System

MATH-MATIC

Jan 1, 1957

By: Charles Katz
For: compiler for UNIVAC I and UNIVAC II; improvement over FORTRAN

Lisp

Jan 1, 1958

By: John McCarthy (MIT)
For: practical mathematical notation for computer programs
Stands For: List Processing

RPG

Jan 1, 1959

By: IBM
For: replicate punched card processing for the IBM Power I platform
Stands For: Report Program Generator

COBOL

Jul 1, 1959

Developed by: Grace Hopper
For: Business, Finance, Administrative Systems
Stands for: Common Business Oriented Language

BASIC

Jan 1, 1964

Developed by: John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz
For: Persuade students to use computers for not just science and mathematics
Stands for: Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

Logo

Sep 3, 1967

By: Wally Feurzeig and Seymour Papert
For: AI Development, Mathematical logic, developmental psychology

B

Jan 1, 1969

Developed by: Ken Thompson
For: Stripped BCPL system for microcomputers

Pascal

Jan 1, 1970

By: Niklaus Wirth
For: encourage programming practices using data structures

C

Jan 1, 1972

Developed by: Dennis Ritchie
For: Compiler for low-level access to memory, map mechanical instructions

ML

Jan 1, 1973

By: Robin Milner
For: proof tactics in the LCF theorm prover (calculus)
Stands For: Metalanguage

C++

Jan 1, 1979

Developed by: Bjarne Stroustrup
For: adding object-oriented features to the C programming language
Stands for: C with classes

ADA

Feb 1, 1980

Developed by: US Department of Defense
For: Development of a high level language system for embedded systems
Name for: Ada Lovelace ("first" programmer)

DELPHI

Jan 1, 1986

Developed by: Apple Computers (Larry Tesler)
For: Supporting MacApp (as well as IDE development)
Nickname for: Object Pascal

Python

Jan 1, 1991

By: Guido van Rossum
For: impliment the concept of fewer lines of code for clear large and small programs

Visual Basic

Jan 1, 1991

By: Microsoft
For: Rapid application development with a GUI

Java

Jun 1, 1991

Developed by: James Gosling (Sun Microsystems)
For: multi-platform use

PHP

Jan 1, 1995

By: Rasmus Lerdort, Andy Gutmans, Zeev Suraski
For: Web development
Stands For: Hypertext Processor

Javascript

Aug 1, 1996

By: Brendan Eich
For: Web Development

SQL

Jan 1, 2000

By: Donald D. Chamberlin, Raymond F. Boyce
For: managing data in a database
Stands for: Structured Query Language