Programming Languages Timeline

By jcobp

  • Plankalkul

    Developed by Konrad Zuse, used for engineering purposes

  • Fortran

    Developed by John Backus, used for numeric and scientific computation and as an assembly language, stands for FORmula TRANslating System

  • MATH-MATIC

    Developed by a group led by Charles Katz, used as a computing language for UNIVAC I and UNIVAC II

  • LISP

    Developed by John McCarthy, used for mathematical and programming purposes, stands for LISt Processing

  • COBOL

    Developed by Grace Hopper, used as a general business/finance language, stands for COmmon Business-Oriented Language

  • RPG

    Developed by IBM, used for business, stands for Report Program Generator

  • BASIC

    Developed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, used for student education, stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

  • LOGO

    Developed by Wally Feurzeig and Seymour Pappert, used for education and math and relied on graphics.

  • B

    Developed by Ken Thompson, used for programming computers.

  • Pascal

    Developed by Niklaus Wirth, used for encouraging programming practices using data structures, named after mathematician Blaise Pascal

  • C

    Developed by Dennis Rtchie, used very commonly today for mapping programming instructions

  • SQL

    Developed by IBM, used for managing data by using a database, stands for Structured Query Language

  • ML

    Developed by Robin Milner, used to to develop proof tactics in the LCF theorem prover, stands for MetaLanguage

  • Ada

    Developed by Jean Ichbiah, used for the United State Department of Defense so they would have a high level legal language system, named after Ada Lovelace, the first programmer

  • C++

    Developed by Bjarne Stroustrup, used for programming software based on C

  • Python

    Developed by Van Rossum, used for fewer lines of code

  • Visual Basic

    Developed by Microsoft, used for rapid application development

  • Delphi

    Developed by Borland Pascal, used to provide database connectivity to programmers as a key feature and a popular database

  • Java

    Developed by James Gosling, used for multi-platform use

  • Javascript

    Developed by Brendan Eich, used in web pages for user interaction and webpage alteration

  • PHP

    Developed by Rasmus Lerdorf, used for web development, formerly stood for Personal HomePage, now stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor