Programming Languages Timeline

By donovank72

  • Plankalkul

    Plankalkul
    Created for engineering programs. First high-level programming language.
    German for “Plan Calculus”.
    Created by Konrad Zuse.

  • Fortran

    Fortran
    Used for scientific and engineering applications in the early days of programming.
    The name Fortran originated from “Formula Translation”.
    Fortran was designed and created by John Backus along with IBM.

  • MATH-MATIC

    MATH-MATIC
    Used as a programming language for the UNIVAC I & II.
    Named after its primary function of computing algebraic equations.
    Designed by Remington Rand and developed by Charles Katz under the direction of Grace Hopper.

  • Lisp

    Lisp
    Originally used as a way to represent mathematical equations on a computer.
    The name comes from “List Processor”.
    Designed by John McCarthy and developed by Steve Russell, Timothy P. Hart, and Mike Levin.

  • COBOL

    COBOL
    Used as a business and finance programming language. Used English-like syntax.
    Stands for Common Business-Oriented Language.
    Created by Howard Bromberg, Howard Discount, Vernon Reeves, Jean E. Sammet, William Selden, and Gertrude Tierney.

  • RPG

    RPG
    Created as a high-level programming language for business.
    Stands for “Report Program Generator”.
    Developed by IBM.

  • BASIC

    BASIC
    Used for general purpose programming, mainly as an introductory language for students.
    Stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
    Created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz.

  • Logo

    Logo
    Used as an educational programming language. Adapted from Lisp.
    The name derives from logos, English for word or thought.
    Designed by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, and Cynthia Solomon.

  • B

    B
    Used as a high level language for the PDP series of computers.
    Named after its predecessor, BCPL.
    Created by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson.

  • PASCAL

    PASCAL
    Used as a general purpose programming language designed to enforce good practices.
    Named after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal.
    Created by Niklaus Wirth.

  • C

    C
    Used as a general purpose low level programming language. Also used for the development of the Linux kernel.
    It is named after it's predecessor, B.
    Created by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson at Bell Labs.

  • ML

    ML
    Used as a general purpose and functional programming language derived from Lisp yet implementing types.
    ML stands for Meta Language.
    Created by Robert Miler and the University of Edinburgh.

  • ADA

    ADA
    Originally used by the DoD as an upgrade to their previously used languages.
    Named after Ada Lovelace
    Created by Jean Ichbiah

  • C++

    C++
    Used as a higher-level version of C that also includes object-oriented features.
    Its name derives from its predecessor, C, the '++' standing for an iteration beyond C.
    Created by Bjarne Stroustrup

  • Delphi

    Delphi
    Delphi, or Object Pascal, added object-oriented features to Pascal. It was used as a general purpose programming language for the development of Macintosh prior to the usage of C++.
    Delphi does not stand for or mean anything.
    Delphi was made by Niklaus Wirth and Anders Hejlsberg.

  • SQL

    SQL
    Created as a language for database management in which databases can be manipulated and queried.
    Stands for “Structured Query Language”.
    Designed by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce and developed by the ISO/IEC.

  • Python

    Python
    Created as a general purpose programming language. Designed specifically for readability and simplicity.
    Named after Monty Python.
    Designed by Guido van Rossum and developed by the Python Software Foundation.

  • Visual Basic

    Derived from BASIC, Visual Basic is used as a introductory and easy to learn programming language by being designed around creating applications.
    The name Visual Basic pays homage to its predecessor while also representing its heavy integration with graphical user interfaces.
    Visual Basic is developed by Microsoft.

  • Java

    Java
    Used as a general purpose, high-level, and object-oriented programming language. Also used for its portability.
    Java was named after coffee.
    Designed by James Gosling and developed by the Oracle corporation.

  • JavaScript

    JavaScript
    Used as a core programming language for web development, adding functionality and interactivity to web pages.
    JavaScript was named after Java as a marketing ploy.
    Designed by Brendan Eich and developed by Netscape, Mozilla, and Ecma.

  • PHP

    PHP
    Used originally for web development.
    First stood for Personal Home Page, now officially stands for “PHP: Hypertext Processor”.
    Designed by Rasmus Lerdorf and developed by the PHP Development Team and Zend technologies.