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The Evolution of Programming Languages

Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2022
Programming Language is indeed the fundamental unit of today’s tech
world. It is considered as the set of commands and instructions that we give
to the machines to perform a particular task. For example, if you give some
set of instructions to add two numbers then the machine will do it for you
and tell you the correct answer accordingly. But do you know that
Programming Languages are having a long and rich history of their
evolution? And with a similar concern, here in this article, we’ll take a look at
the evolution of Programming Languages over the period.

In the computer world, we have about 500+ programming languages with

having their own syntax and features. And if you type who’s the father of the
computer, then the search engine will show you the result as to Charles
Babbage but the father of the computer didn’t write the first code. It was
Ada Lovelace who has written the first-ever computer programming
language and the year was 1883.

1883: The Journey starts from here…!!

In the early days, Charles Babbage had made the device, but he was
confused about how to give instructions to the machine, and then Ada
Lovelace wrote the instructions for the analytical engine.
The device was made by Charles Babbage and the code was written by
Ada Lovelace for computing Bernoulli’s number.
First time in history that the capability of computer devices was judged.

1949: Assembly Language

It is a type of low-level language.

It mainly consists of instructions (kind of symbols) that only machines
could understand.
In today’s time also assembly language is used in real-time programs
such as simulation flight navigation systems and medical equipment eg –
Fly-by-wire (FBW) systems.
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8/12/24, 12:53 AM The Evolution of Programming Languages - GeeksforGeeks
y y ( ) y
It is also used to create computer viruses.
1952: Autocode

Developed by Alick Glennie.

The first compiled computer programming language.
COBOL and FORTRAN are the languages referred to as Autocode.

1957: FORTRAN

Developers are John Backus and IBM.

It was designed for numeric computation and scientific computing.
Software for NASA probes voyager-1 (space probe) and voyager-2 (space
probe) was originally written in FORTRAN 5.

1958: ALGOL

ALGOL stands for ALGOrithmic Language.

The initial phase of the most popular programming languages of C, C++,
and JAVA.
It was also the first language implementing the nested function and has a
simple syntax than FORTRAN.
The first programming language to have a code block like “begin” that
indicates that your program has started and “end” means you have ended
your code.

1959: COBOL

It stands for COmmon Business-Oriented Language.

In 1997, 80% of the world’s business ran on Cobol.
The US internal revenue service scrambled its path to COBOL-based IMF
(individual master file) in order to pay the tens of millions of payments
mandated by the coronavirus aid, relief, and economic security.

1964: BASIC

It stands for beginners All-purpose symbolic instruction code.

In 1991 Microsoft released Visual Basic, an updated version of Basic
The first microcomputer version of Basic was co-written by Bill Gates,
Paul Allen, and Monte Davidoff for their newly-formed company,
Microsoft.

1972: C
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It is a general-purpose, procedural programming language and the most

popular programming language till now.
All the code that was previously written in assembly language gets
replaced by the C language like operating system, kernel, and many other
applications.
It can be used in implementing an operating system, embedded system,
and also on the website using the Common Gateway Interface (CGI).
C is the mother of almost all higher-level programming languages like
C#, D, Go, Java, JavaScript, Limbo, LPC, Perl, PHP, Python, and Unix’s C
shell.

Some other programming languages that are popular among programmers

are listed below.

YEAR OF PROGRAMMING FACTS

RELEASE LANGUAGES

1972 SQL was developed at IBM by Donald D.

Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce. The
SQL
earlier name was SEQUEL (Structured
English Query Language).

1978 It stands for MATrix LABoratory. It is

used for matrix manipulation,
MATLAB
implementation of an algorithm, and
creation of a user interface.

1983 C++ is the fastest high-level

programming language.
Objective-C, C++
Earlier, Apple Inc uses Objective-C to
make applications.

1990 It is a purely functional programming

Haskell
language.

1991 The language is very easy to

Python understand. Famous language among
data scientists and analysts.
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8/12/24, 12:53 AM The Evolution of Programming Languages - GeeksforGeeks
data scientists and analysts.

YEAR OF PROGRAMMING FACTS

RELEASE LANGUAGES

1995 JAVA is everywhere. JAVA is the

platform-independent language.

PHP is a scripting language mainly used

in web programming for connecting
databases.
JAVA, PHP, JavaScript
JavaScript enables interactive web
pages. JS is the most popular
programming language. JS is famous for
building a web application. It makes our
page interactive.

2000 C#(C-sharp) is mainly used for making

C# games. Unity engine uses C# for making
amazing games for all platforms

2009 GO language is developed in Google by

GO Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken
Thompson.

2011 Kotlin is developed by JetBrains. It is

Kotlin
used for making an android application.

2014 Swift language is developed by Apple

Swift Inc. It is a general-purpose programming
language.

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guidance & support.

krish… 50

Next Article
Introduction to Programming Languages

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