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Plankalkül
Developed by: Konrad Zuse
Plankalkül was designed with engineering purposes and was the first high level programming language ever created for a computer. The name Plankalkul comes from the German word for “formal system of planning.” -
Fortran
Developed by: John Backus and IBM
Fortran is short for formula translation. This language is used mainly for mathematical and scientific computing. The name Fortran comes from "Formal Translation." -
MATH-MATIC
Developed by: Grace Hopper for the UNIVAC I and UNIVAC II
The name MATH-MATIC is actually a marketing name while the real name of this language is AT-3 (Algebraic Translator 3). The language was created for the purpose of solving mathematical operations with exponents, decimals, or fractions. -
Lisp
Developed by: John McCarthy
Lisp can be used for all sorts of applications but is mainly used in artificial intelligence. The name LISP derives from "LISt Processor." -
COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language)
Developed by: CODASYL, ANSI, and ISO
The second oldest programming language.
Used for business applications on larger computers. -
RPG (Report Program Generator)
Developed by: IBM
RPG started out being used to generate reports based on punching cards and was used for the sole purpose of generating reports. Over time, RPG received more features and changes which made it more and more like other general purpose programming languages. -
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)
Designed by: John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz
It was developed as a teaching tool for undergraduates of Dartmouth College. It was primarily used to teach beginners how to code such as college students because it was easy to pick up and use. -
LOGO
Developed by: Bolt, Beranek and Newman
LOGO is used for turtle graphics or more commonly known as vector graphics in programs such as Adobe Illustrator. The name LOGO isn't an acronym, it was created by Feurzeig while he was at Bolt, Beranek and Newman. -
B
Developed by: Ken Thompson Dennis Ritchie
It was created for non-numerical operations such as system creation and operating system creation. B is a direct successor to BCPL which can be where its name came from. -
PASCAL
Developed by: Niklaus Wirth
It is named after the French mathematician, philosopher and physicist Blaise Pascal. Pascal is a general purpose and high level programming language developed for the purpose of teaching because it was easy to learn, and could create reliable and efficient programs easily. -
C
Developed by: Dennis Ritchie and Bell Labs
The most common programming language used worldwide. This is because it can be used to to create everything from tiny micro controllers to entire operating systems. It allows full control with very little commands. It is simply called C because it is a direct successor to programming language B. -
ML
Designed by: Robin Milner
ML stands for Standard Meta Language and was created for research purposes. It is a general all purpose language. It can be used to solve scientific equations, prove theorems, and other mathematical uses. -
SQL (Structured Query Language)
Developed by: Raymond Boyce and Donald Chamberlin of IBM
SQL is used for the sole purpose of storing, manipulating, and retrieving data from databases. -
ADA
Developed by: Jean Ichbiah and S. Tucker Taft
ADA was named after Ada Lovelace, the person believed to be the first computer programmer.
ADA is an object-oriented programming language, which also allows for more flexible libraries, and better ways of handling shared data than that of other languages of the time.On top of all this, it could handle its own run-time errors and did not require data type to be specified. -
C++
Designed by: Bjarne Stroustrup
C++ is a successor to C. C++ is used to create procedural programs that allow for the CPU to have full control over the hardware in the system. Because of this, it is used to develop many game engines. -
Python
Developed by: Guido van Rossum
Python is a high level, general purpose programming language which can be used to create desktop and web based applications. It can mostly be used for scientific and mathematical applications. The name Python actually comes from the comedy group "Monty Python." -
Visual Basic
Developed by: Microsoft
Visual basic was designed for an easy learning curve where programmers can create both simple and complex applications while using it. Visual Basic gets its name from BASIC, its predecessor. -
Javascript
Developer: Brendan Eich
Javascript is very appealing because all you need to do is paste your script into an HTML document and tell the browser that it's javascript. It is mainly used to create web pages and other interactive tools on a website. The name comes from a partnership with Java and was actually originally called Mocha. -
Delphi
Developed by: Borland Software Corporation
Delphi is used to create applications quickly and templates to create applications. It is the successor or Turbo Pascal. The name Delphi doesn't have any true meaning behind it other than being a marketing strategy for the program. -
Java
Designed by: James Gosling
Developed by: Sun Microsystems
Java was designed so code writers will have the fewest implementation dependencies possible so that the programmer write once and run anywhere. Java also is highly portable meaning that it runs on a wide variety of platforms and operating systems. There is no special story about the name other than for the sake of uniqueness and winning votes against other simplistic names like Silk. -
PHP
Developed by: Rasmus Lerdorf
PHP was created with the purpose of web development. It can be embed into HTML and is general purpose which makes it perfect for developing web pages. PHP used to stand for Personal Home Page when it came out, but now it is referred to as PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.