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Plankalkul was developed by Konrad Zuse in 1944. Its primary purpose was to be used for creating procedures. Plankalkul translates to "Plan Calculus."
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Fortran was developed by John Backus in 1957 and its primary purpose was to make programming easier to learn. Fortran stands for Formula Translation.
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MATH-MATIC was developed by Charles Katz in 1957. Its primary purpose was to be used for solving mathematical operations. MATH-MATIC is not an acronym.
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COBOL was developed by a group of programmers known as the Conference on Data Systems Languages in 1959. Its primary purpose was to be used for business purposes. COBOL stands for "Common Business Oriented Language."
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RPG was developed by IBM in 1959 and its primary purpose was to be used with punched card machines. RPG stands for Report Program Generator.
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Lisp was developed by John McCarthy in 1960. Its primary purpose was to be used for Artificial Intelligence programming. Lisp stands for List Processing.
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BASIC was developed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in 1964. Its primary purpose was to make computer programming easier. The letters in BASIC stand for "Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code."
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LOGO was developed by Wally Feurzeig, Cynthia Solomon, and Seymour Papert in 1967. Its primary purpose was to be used for learning. LOGO is not an acronym.
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The programming language B was developed by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie in 1969. Its primary purpose was to be used for system development. It is unknown whether or not B stands for something more meaningful.
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PASCAL was developed by Niklaus Wirth in 1970 and its primary purpose was to be used for teaching structured programming. PASCAL is named after French mathematician Blaise Pascal.
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The programming language C was developed by Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan in 1972. Its primary purpose was to be used in writing operating systems for minicomputers. The letter C does not stand for something more meaningful.
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ML was developed by Robin Milner in the early 1970s. Its primary purpose was to be used for general purposes. ML stands for "Meta Language."
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SQL was developed by Raymond Boyce and Donald Chamberlin in the early 1970s. Its primary purpose was to be used for managing data in a relational database management system. SQL stands for "Structured Query Language."
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C++ was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup and its primary purpose was to make programming easier and more enjoyable. C++ means "C with classes."
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Computer scientists working for the US Department of Defense developed the ADA language in 1980. Its primary purpose was to be used for large-scale programming at the US Department of Defense. ADA is named after Augusta Ada King, who is said to be the first computer programmer.
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Python was developed by Guido van Rossum in 1989 and its primary purpose was to be used for general purposes such as creating large-scale projects. Python is not an acronym.
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Visual Basic was developed by Alan Cooper in 1991 and its primary purpose was to make writing programs on Windows easier. Visual Basic is not an acronym.
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PHP was developed by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 and its primary purpose was to be used for web development. PHP stands for "Hypertext Preprocessor."
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Delphi was developed by Anders Hejlsberg in 1995. Its primary purpose was to be used for building Windows applications. Delphi does not stand for something meaningful.
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Java was developed by James Gosling in 1995 and its primary purpose was to allow consumer electronic devices to communicate with each other. Java does not stand for something meaningful.
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Javascript was developed by Brendan Eich in 1995 and its primary purpose was to be used for making web browsers more interactive. Javascript is not an acronym for anything.