The Origins (1840s-1940s)

1843: Ada Lovelace’s Algorithm

The history of programming begins with Ada Lovelace, a British aristocrat that was educated in mathematics and science. In 1843, Lovelace created the very first machine algorithm for Charles Babbage’s Difference Machine. This conceptual leap is what gave birth to the idea of programming languages.

1936: Alan Turing’s Theoretical Foundation

Alan Turing published a paper in 1936 that is now regarded as the founding work of computer science. Turing introduced the concept of a universal machine that could follow instructions. This revolutionary idea eventually evolved into plans for an electricity-powered computer that could run programs, mathematically defining what computation meant.

1940s: First Programming Languages and Electronic Computers

• Konrad Zuse’s Plankalkül: Considered the first programming language for computers, created in the early 1940s to store codes for routine, repetitive tasks
• Assembly Language (1949): A programming language that simplified computer instructions
• Shortcode (1949): Developed by William Schmitt for the BINAC and UNIVAC computers
• ENIAC: The first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, which required physical rewiring to program

The First Programming Languages (1950s-1960s)

Early 1950s: First Compiler Languages

• Autocode (1952): Developed for the Mark 1 computer at the University of Manchester, it was the first language that could be translated into machine code
• Assembly Language: Further evolved as the first step away from machine code, using symbolic representations of machine instructions

Mid to Late 1950s: Foundation of Modern Programming

• FORTRAN (1957): Developed by John Backus at IBM, FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) was the first widely used high-level programming language, designed for scientific and engineering calculations. Remarkably, this language from the 1950s is still used today in supercomputers and scientific computations.
• ALGOL (1958): Created by American and European scientists, ALGOL became the foundation for many renowned languages including Pascal, Java, C, and C++
• LISP (1958): Created by John McCarthy, introducing many ideas still central to programming today, including recursion and tree data structures. Originally intended for AI, companies like Boeing and Genworks still use it.
• COBOL (1959): Developed by a team led by Dr. Grace Murray Hopper, COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) was designed for business applications like credit card transaction processors, traffic signals, and phone calls. It’s still used in banking and gaming today.

1960s: Programming Becomes More Accessible

• BASIC (1964): Developed by students at Dartmouth College (Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), it was designed to make programming accessible. Later further developed and marketed by Bill Gates.
• PL/I (1964): IBM’s attempt to create a language combining the best features of FORTRAN and COBOL
• APL (1966): A highly symbolic language focused on array processing
• SIMULA (1967): The first object-oriented programming language, introducing concepts like classes and inheritance

The Structured Programming Era (1970s)

• Pascal (1970): Designed by Niklaus Wirth and named after French mathematician Blaise Pascal, it was created explicitly to encourage structured programming. So easy to learn, it was used by Apple early in its history.
• C (1972): Developed at Bell Labs by Dennis Ritchie for the Unix operating system, combining low-level access with high-level abstractions. Many modern languages like C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, and Python are derived from C.
• Smalltalk (1972): Developed by Alan Kay, Adele Goldberg, and Dan Ingalls at Xerox PARC. It pioneered the graphical user interface and pure object-oriented programming. Its principles are present in Java, Python, and Ruby, used by companies like CrowdStrike and Logitech.
• SQL (1972): Originally called SEQUEL, it was developed by Raymond Boyce and Donald Chamberlain for viewing and altering information in databases.
• Ada (late 1970s-early 1980s): Named after Ada Lovelace, it was designed by Jean Ichbiah’s team at CUU Honeywell Bull. A high-level programming language extended from Pascal, Ada is used for air-traffic control in various European countries and space programs.

The Rise of Personal Computing (1980s)

• C++ (1983): Bjarne Stroustrup modified the C language at Bell Labs to create C++, adding object-oriented features, classes, templates, and virtual functions. It’s now used in MS Office, Adobe Photoshop, and various types of high-performance software.
• Objective-C (1983): Developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love as another object-oriented extension of C, later becoming the foundation for Apple’s operating systems.
• Perl (1987): Created by Larry Wall, initially for text editing. Today its primary uses include database applications, data processing, graphic programming, and system administration.
• Haskell (1990): Named after mathematician Haskell Brooks Curry, this primarily mathematical programming language is used in industries that need complex calculations and record-keeping.
• Visual Basic (1991, but conceptualized in the late 1980s): Microsoft’s attempt to make Windows programming accessible. It allows users to drag and drop sections of code via a graphical user interface (GUI). Parts of Visual Basic are used in applications like Word and Excel.

The Internet Age (1990s)

• Python (1991): Created by Guido Van Rossum and named after the British comedy Monty Python, it emphasizes code readability. Today Python is one of the most popular programming languages worldwide, used by giants like Google and Spotify.
• Ruby (1993): Created by Yukihiro Matsumoto as a high-level programming language primarily for web applications development. Today it’s used by companies like Groupon.
• HTML (1993): Not strictly a programming language, but fundamental to web development
• Java (1995): Developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems with the promise of “write once, run anywhere.” It’s one of the world’s most popular programming languages, used in everything from cell phones to parking machines.
• JavaScript (1995): Created by Brendan Eich, now ubiquitous in web development. Used for web development, PDF documents, and desktop widgets, it’s on almost every major website, including Adobe, Gmail, and Mozilla Firefox.
• PHP (1995): Originally known as “Personal Home Page” but now stands for “Hypertext Preprocessor,” it was developed by Rasmus Lerdorf. Used for building and maintaining web pages and server-side development, PHP powers huge platforms like Facebook, Wikipedia, and WordPress.

The Modern Era (2000s-2010s)

• C# (2000): Microsoft developed C# in an attempt to combine elements of Visual Basic and C. It’s now used in all the company’s products.
• Scala (2003): Created by Martin Odersky, it can work with Java, giving it an advantage in Android development. Scala is used by social media and entertainment giants like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Netflix.
• Groovy (2003): An easy-to-learn language developed by James Strachan and Bob McWhirter, used by companies like Starbucks, Craftbase, and Transferwise.
• Go (2009): Developed by Google to resolve challenges faced by large software systems. Go is popular with big tech companies like Uber, Dropbox, and of course, Google.
• Rust (2010): Mozilla’s language designed for memory safety without garbage collection
• TypeScript (2012): Microsoft’s statically-typed superset of JavaScript
• Swift (2014): Developed by Apple to replace C, C++, and Objective-C, intended to be easier and more versatile. Swift can be used for cloud applications, mobile, and desktop. Language platform Duolingo used it to launch a new app.

The AI and Cloud Native Era (2010s-Present)

• Julia (2012): Designed for high-performance numerical analysis and computational science
• Kotlin (2011, widely adopted late 2010s): Modern alternative to Java, particularly for Android development
• WebAssembly (2017): Not a traditional language, but a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine
• Dart (2011, popularized with Flutter 2017): Google’s language for multi-platform development
• Python’s resurgence: Becoming the dominant language for data science, AI, and machine learning

The Future of Programming

As we look ahead, programming continues to evolve in exciting new directions. Low-code and no-code platforms are democratizing software development, making it accessible to those without traditional programming skills. Meanwhile, AI-assisted coding tools like GitHub Copilot are revolutionizing how developers work by generating code from natural language prompts. The emergence of quantum computing is driving the development of specialized quantum programming languages to harness this powerful new paradigm. Simultaneously, domain-specific languages are becoming increasingly sophisticated, offering tailored solutions for specific industries and problems. These trends collectively point to a future where programming becomes both more specialized and more accessible, continuing the remarkable journey that began with Ada Lovelace’s algorithm nearly two centuries ago.

Citations

Aron, Jacob. “Alan Turing.” New Scientist, www.newscientist.com/people/alan-turing/.

Hamilton, Tim. “History of Programming Languages.” Praxent, 4 Oct. 2022, praxent.com/blog/history-of-programming-languages.

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Ada Lovelace | Biography & Facts.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 23 Nov. 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Ada-Lovelace.