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History of Programming Languages

History

Early History : The first programmers

1940s: Von Neumann and Zuse

1950s: The First Programming Language

1960s: Explosion in Programming languages

1970s: Simplicity, Abstraction, Study

1980s: Object-oriented, Logic programming

1990s: Internet, Java, C++, C#

2000s: Scripting, Web, …

2010s: Parallel computing, concurrency

Early History: First Programmers

1672: The Pascaline

2 Designed and built by Blaise Pascal

3 One of the first mechanical calculators

4 Could do addition and subtraction

|The Pascaline: One of the Earliest Mechanical Calculators |

|[pic] |

| (try me!) |

Jacquard loom of early 1800s

Translated card patterns into cloth designs

|the Jacquard loom |

|[pic] |

| |

|The holes are the first simple type of Boolean response. Needles will pull thread if there is an empty spot. |

Charles Babbage’s analytical engine (1830s & 40s)

8 Programs were cards with data and operations.

9 Steam powered!

|Charles Babbage’s analytical engine |

|[pic] |

Ada Lovelace – first programmer

“The engine can arrange and combine its numerical quantities exactly as if they were letters or any other general symbols; And in fact might bring out its results in algebraic notation, were provision made.”

Konrad Zuse

13 Plankalkul (plan calculus) in Germany in the 1940s

14 the first algorithmic programming language (not a machine)

15 with an aim of creating the theoretical preconditions for the formulation of problems of a general nature.

16 Seven years earlier, Zuse had developed and built the world's first binary digital computer, the Z1.

17 He completed the first fully functional program-controlled electromechanical digital computer, the Z3, in 1941.

18 Only the Z4 – the most sophisticated of his creations -- survived World War II.

19 Wrote algorithms in the language, including a program to play chess.

20 His work finally published in 1972.

21 Included some advanced data type features such as

22 Floating point, used twos complement and hidden bits

23 Arrays

24 records (that could be nested)

|Plankalkul Code |

|[pic] |

|A(7) := 5 * B(6) |

|| 5 * B => A |

|V | 6 7 (subscripts) |

|S | 1.n 1.n (data types) |

Von Neumann

2 led a team that built computers with stored programs and a central processor

3 ENIAC was programmed with patch cords (cables to transmit data)

Machine Codes (40’s)

• Initial computers were programmed in raw machine codes.

o analog!!!

• What was wrong with using machine code? Everything!

o Poor readability

o Poor modifiability

o Expression coding was tedious

o Inherit deficiencies of hardware, e.g., no indexing or floating point numbers

o hard to train others!!!

|TDC Example |

|[pic] |[pic] |

|This stood a couple of feet | |

|high!! | |

The 1950s: The First Programming Language

Pseudocodes: interpreters for assembly language

Fortran: the first higher level programming language

COBOL: the first business oriented language

Algol: one of the most influential programming languages ever designed

LISP: the first language outside the von Neumann model

APL: A Programming Language

Pseudocodes (1949)

Short Code or SHORTCODE - John Mauchly, 1949.

Pseudocode interpreter for math problems (only), on Eckert and Mauchly’s BINAC and later on UNIVAC I and II.

Possibly the first attempt at a higher level language.

Expressions were coded, left to right, e.g.:

|ShortCode Example |

| |

|X0 = sqrt(abs(Y0)) |

|00 X0 03 20 06 Y0 |

|ShortCode Translation Table |

| |

|01 – 06 abs 1n (n+2)nd power |

|02 ) 07 + 2n (n+2)nd root |

|03 = 08 pause 4n if ................
................

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