IT 106 | WEEK 1
HISTORY OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
Programming Language
●The first programming language was developed
in 1883 when Ada Lovelace and Charles
Babbage worked together on the Analytical
Engine.
Programmer
● Charles Babbage (1791-1871) – was an
English Mathematician and inventor. He is
credited with designing the first digital automatic
computer. He is also called the Father of all the
computers.
● Ada Lovelace (Dec. 10, 1815) - is considered
the first computer programmer and invents the
first ever machine algorithm for Charles
Babbage.
Plankalkul Language (1944-1945)
●Konrad Zeus developed the first ‘real’
programming language called Plankalkül (Plan
Calculus). Zeus’s language (among other
things) allowed for the creations of procedures,
which stored chunks of code that could be
invoked over and over to perform routine
operations.
Assembly Language (1949)
● Was used in the Electronic Delay Storage
Automatic Calculator (EDSAC). Assembly
language was a type of low-level programming
language that simplified the language of
machine code.
Shortcode Language (1949)
● Was the first High-Level Language (HLL)
suggested by John McCauley in 1949. Small
piece of code that is used to perform a specific
function or task on a website or content
management system. Short codes are typically
enclosed in square brackets [ ] and can be
inserted into the content of a page, post, or
widget.
Autocode Language (1952)
● Was a general term used for a family of
programming languages. First developed by
Alick Glennie for the Mark 1 computer at the
University of Manchester, Autocode was the
first-ever compiled language to be
implemented meaning that it can be translated
directly into machine code using a program
called a compiler.
Fortran Language (1957)
● FORmula TRANslation or FORTRAN was
created by John Backus and is considered to
be the oldest programming language in use
today. The programming language was created
for high-level scientific, mathematical, and
statistical computations.
Algol (1958)
●Algorithmic Language or ALGOL was created
by a joint committee of American and European
computer scientists. ALGOL served as the
starting point for the development of some of
the most important programming languages
including Pascal, C, C++, and Java.
Lisp Language (1958)
●List Processor or LISP was invented by John
McCarthy at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). Originally purposed for
artificial intelligence, LISP is one of the oldest
programming languages still in use today
and can be used in the place of Ruby or Python.
Cobol (1959)
● Common Business Oriented Language
(COBOL) is the programming language behind
many credit card processors, ATMs, telephone
and cell calls, hospital signals, and traffic signals
systems.
Basic Language (1964)
● Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction
Code. The language was developed further by
Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen and
became the first marketable product of the
company.
Pascal Language (1970)
● Named after the French Mathematician Blaise
Pascal, Niklaus Wirth developed the
programming language in his honor. It was
developed as a learning tool for computer
programming which meant it was easy to learn.
It was favored by Apple in the company’s early
days, because of its ease of use and power.
Smalltalk Language (1972)
● Developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research
Centre by Alan Kay, Adele Goldberg, and Dan
Ingalls, Smalltalk allowed for computer
programmers to modify code on the fly. It
introduced a variety of programming language
aspects that are visible languages of today such
as Python, Java, and Ruby.
