Programming Language Timeline

By josh.lanning

  • Fortran

    1957: Fortran, a programming language created for scientific computing, is developed by John Backus. Name derived from Formula Translation.

  • MATH-MATIC

    1957: MATH-MATIC, a programming language developed for the UNIVAC I, is developed by Remington Rand. Actual name is Algebraic Translator 3 (AT-3), MATH-MATIC is a marketing name.

  • Lisp

    1958: Lisp, a collection of programming languages, is developed by John McCarthy. Name derived from List Processor.

  • COBOL

    1959: COBOL, a compiled programming language for business use, is developed by Howard Bromberg, Howard Discount, Vernon Reeves, Jean E. Sammet, William Selden, and Gertrude Tierney. Name stands for common business-oriented language.

  • RPG

    1959: RPG, a programming language for businesses, is developed by IBM. Name stands for Report Program Generator.

  • BASIC

    1964: BASIC, a general-use programming language, is developed by John G, Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz. Stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.

  • Logo

    1967: Logo, an educational programming language, is developed by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, and Cynthia Solomon. Name derived from Greek logos (thought).

  • B

    1969: B, a computer programming language designed for non-numeric applications, is developed by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Name derived from BCPL.

  • PASCAL

    1970: PASCAL, an imperative programming language intended to encourage good programming practices, is developed by Niklaus Wirth. Named after French mathematician Blaise Pascal.

  • C

    1972: C, a programming language originally designed for Unix, is developed by Dennis Ritchie. Name has no origin or significance

  • ML

    1973: ML, a functional programming language, is developed by Robin Milner. Name stands for Meta Language.

  • SQL

    1974: SQL, a programming language intended for data management, is developed by Donald D. Chamberlin and
    Raymond F. Boyce. Name stands for Structured Query Language.

  • Plankalkul

    1975: Plankalkul, an engineering-based programming language conceptualized by Konrad Zuse in 1948, is compiled in 1975 by Joachim Hohmann. Name translates to 'formal system for planning'.

  • C++

    1985: C++, a general-use programming language, is developed by Bjarne Stroustrup. Name comes from C programming language, the double plus signs are the increment operator in C.

  • ADA

    1989: ADA, a computer programming language that improves code safety and maintainability, is developed by Jean Ichbiah. Named after Ada Lovelace, credited as the first computer programmer.

  • Python

    1990: Python, a general-use programming language, is developed by Guido van Rossum. Named after the british comedian Monty Python.

  • Visual Basic

    1991: Visual Basic, a programming language useful for creating applications, is developed by Microsoft. Name is a combination of Ruby (codename for the language, origin of Visual) and BASIC (programming language used to develop VL, origin of Basic).

  • Delphi

    1995: Delphi, an integrated development environment, is developed by Borland Software Corporation. Named after the Grecian myth of the Oracle of Delphi.

  • Java

    1995: Java, a general-use programming language, is developed by James Gosling. Named after Java Coffee.

  • Javascript

    1995: Javascript, a dynamic programming language, is developed by Brendan Eich. Named after Java, but ultimately unrelated.

  • PHP

    1995: PHP, a programming language created for web development, is developed by Rasmus Lerdorf. Name stands for Hypertext Preprocessor.