Programming Languages Timeline

  • Plankalkul

    Konrad Zuse, programming language designed for engineering purposes
  • Fortran

    John Backus and IBM, developed and used for scientific and engineering applications
  • MATH-MATIC

    Grace Hopper and others, served as a model on which to build with input from other sources and was the main inspiration for COBOL.
  • Lisp

    , Steve Russell, Timothy P. Hart, and Mike Levin, originally created as a practical mathematical notation for computer programs
  • COBOL

    , Howard Bromberg, Howard Discount, Vernon Reeves, Jean E. Sammet, William Selden, Gertrude Tierney; is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use (common business-oriented language)
  • RPG

    IBM, used for business applications (Report Program Generator)
  • BASIC

    John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz; design philosophy emphasizes ease of use. (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)
  • LOGO

    Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, originally conceived to teach concepts of programming related to LISP
  • B

    Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie; designed for recursive, non-numeric, machine independent applications, such as system and language software
  • PASCAL

    Niklaus Wirth, used small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.
  • C

    Dennis Ritchie; used to re-implement the UNIX operating system.
  • ML

    Robin Milner and others, conceived to develop proof tactics in the LCF theorem prover. (metalanguage)
  • SQL

    ISO/IEC, designed for managing data held in a relational database management system, (Structured Query Language)
  • ADA

    Jean Ichbiah, Tucker Taft; used to supersede the hundreds of programming languages then used by the DoD
  • C++

    Bjarne Stroustrup; used as an extension of the C language as he wanted an efficient and flexible language similar to C, which also provided high-level features for program organization.
  • Python

    Python Software Foundation, design philosophy emphasizes code readability, and its syntax allows programmers to express concepts in fewer lines of code
  • Visual Basic

    Microsoft, enables the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface
  • Java

    Oracle Corporation, It is intended to let application developers "write once, run anywhere"
  • JavaScript

    Brendan Eich, used to be supported by all modern web browsers without plug-ins
  • PHP

    The PHP Group, designed for web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language (Personal Home Page)
  • Delphi

    Embarcadero Technologies, used as a rapid application development tool for Windows