Programming Languages Timeline

Plankalkul

1944

Plankalkul was developed by Konrad Zuse in 1944. Its primary purpose was to be used for creating procedures. Plankalkul translates to "Plan Calculus."

Fortran

1957

Fortran was developed by John Backus in 1957 and its primary purpose was to make programming easier to learn. Fortran stands for Formula Translation.

MATH-MATIC

1957

MATH-MATIC was developed by Charles Katz in 1957. Its primary purpose was to be used for solving mathematical operations. MATH-MATIC is not an acronym.

COBOL

1959

COBOL was developed by a group of programmers known as the Conference on Data Systems Languages in 1959. Its primary purpose was to be used for business purposes. COBOL stands for "Common Business Oriented Language."

RPG

1959

RPG was developed by IBM in 1959 and its primary purpose was to be used with punched card machines. RPG stands for Report Program Generator.

Lisp

1960

Lisp was developed by John McCarthy in 1960. Its primary purpose was to be used for Artificial Intelligence programming. Lisp stands for List Processing.

BASIC

1964

BASIC was developed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in 1964. Its primary purpose was to make computer programming easier. The letters in BASIC stand for "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code."

LOGO

1967

LOGO was developed by Wally Feurzeig, Cynthia Solomon, and Seymour Papert in 1967. Its primary purpose was to be used for learning. LOGO is not an acronym.

B

1969

The programming language B was developed by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie in 1969. Its primary purpose was to be used for system development. It is unknown whether or not B stands for something more meaningful.

PASCAL

1970

PASCAL was developed by Niklaus Wirth in 1970 and its primary purpose was to be used for teaching structured programming. PASCAL is named after French mathematician Blaise Pascal.

C

1972

The programming language C was developed by Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan in 1972. Its primary purpose was to be used in writing operating systems for minicomputers. The letter C does not stand for something more meaningful.

ML

1973

ML was developed by Robin Milner in the early 1970s. Its primary purpose was to be used for general purposes. ML stands for "Meta Language."

SQL

1974

SQL was developed by Raymond Boyce and Donald Chamberlin in the early 1970s. Its primary purpose was to be used for managing data in a relational database management system. SQL stands for "Structured Query Language."

C++

1979

C++ was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup and its primary purpose was to make programming easier and more enjoyable. C++ means "C with classes."

ADA

1980

Computer scientists working for the US Department of Defense developed the ADA language in 1980. Its primary purpose was to be used for large-scale programming at the US Department of Defense. ADA is named after Augusta Ada King, who is said to be the first computer programmer.

Python

1989

Python was developed by Guido van Rossum in 1989 and its primary purpose was to be used for general purposes such as creating large-scale projects. Python is not an acronym.

Visual Basic

1991

Visual Basic was developed by Alan Cooper in 1991 and its primary purpose was to make writing programs on Windows easier. Visual Basic is not an acronym.

PHP

1994

PHP was developed by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 and its primary purpose was to be used for web development. PHP stands for "Hypertext Preprocessor."

Delphi

1995

Delphi was developed by Anders Hejlsberg in 1995. Its primary purpose was to be used for building Windows applications. Delphi does not stand for something meaningful.

Java

1995

Java was developed by James Gosling in 1995 and its primary purpose was to allow consumer electronic devices to communicate with each other. Java does not stand for something meaningful.

Javascript

1995

Javascript was developed by Brendan Eich in 1995 and its primary purpose was to be used for making web browsers more interactive. Javascript is not an acronym for anything.