Talk:Timeline of programming languages

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Copied from Programming language/Timeline which is now redirected. -- Buz Cory.

Changed language links to be uniformly "X programming language" which is supposed the standard name for a programming language page. See disambiguating

Some links now need fixing. For instance, the page C language needs renaming to C programming language.

Fix the destinations, not the pointers to them. -- Buz Cory

Some things are here that don't belong here. Notably Compilers (MicroSoft C), GUIs (Microsoft Windows) and OSen (CP/M, Linux).

Where a particular compiler extends the language (Such as the Borland Pascal compilers did), it should be here. Where it is a pretty standard implementation, it does not.

I will be removing things that seem inappropriate. -- Buz Cory

1 Analytical engine
2 Lambda calculus
3 PHP
4 Inclusion of languages
5 Legend
6 About Chrome
7 Object-C in 1983 not 1982

[edit] Analytical engine

The analytical engine shouldn't be on this list either, I don't think. It was a computational machine, but it did not run on a pgoramming language, rather on punchcards. Also the machine wasn't never tested until 1991. Subversive 07:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

While it's true that the Analytical Engine was a computer rather than a programming language, it did have a machine language which is what Ada Lovelace used to write her program. As for the punchcards, I fail to see your point. All computer programs had to be punched onto paper tape or punch cards until the mid-60s. In fact when I first learned to program in the mid-70s I was still using punch cards for my FORTRAN code. Each punch card had one language statement punched into it. This was just as true for the Analytical Engine as it was for the CDC 6600 which I last fed punched cards to. -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:58, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Am making a second section for items where the date is unknown or questionable. -- Buz Cory

I see you moved the legend back to the bottom of the page, and that's fine, but I think the link back to the programming language page should have been kept. --loh

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As a matter of fact, I was forced to reformat some (select/paste from NS6 to my editor lost the leading spaces) and so put a new legend at the top. You're right about the programming language link, it is now at the top. I only left the old legend at the bottom because I thought someone might want to make something of it. --Buz Cory

I agree that there is far too many versions of the same things. If we are going to include all languages on this time line it will be unusable. Really it should just show the major movements in the programming world.

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Actually, if only languages are mentioned, there are several hundred, probably (including all variations). Not an unworkable number. There is a separate hardware timeline page, and separate timelines for OSen, and another for Commercial End User Apps might be a good idea.

Just don't mix them all on one page! --Buz Cory

I think you are out by an order of magnitude for the number of languages. Now I don't dispute each of these languages deserve a page on the wikipedia, but by having a time line consisting of x000 languages is not really going to convery much useful info.

What I may get around to is for the Lisp family, just show LISP, Common-Lisp, and Scheme in the main time-line but ALSO have a LISP-time-line. Other candidates would be FORTRAN-like, C-like, dBase-like, Pascal-like languages etc.

Any views on this approach?

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If you are right on numbers, your approach is probably better. For the moment, I think this page, as it is, is probably best. If/when it gets too big, we can always split it. --Buz Cory

I noticed that some entries here are at variance with the corresponding ones at History of computing. I have no way of deciding these, but I think they should be mentioned and eventually, we should try to resolve these. --AxelBoldt

 Language       Programming Timeline         Computing History
 =============================================================
 FORTRAN          59                           54-57
 LISP             59                           58-60
 Algol            58                           60
 APL              62                           61
 COBOL            60                           59-61
 Turbo Pascal     83                           84
 Ada              83                           79

Lisp: as explained in LISP_programming_language, McCarthy claims to have invented it in 1958, he makes this claim in his 1960 paper. It is doubtful that any implementation actually existed at the time (but that is true of many languages). --drj

What date do we use in the Programming language timeline: the date of first implementation or of first description? --AxelBoldt

Well, I would say first implementation or first description. There are plenty of languages in which the implementation came first (perl, python, C) and plenty of languages in which the description came first (Lisp, Algol?, CPL, intercal). Reading the papers that the creators of these languages wrote one gets the impression that if the implementation came first then that was when the language was created and if the description came first then that was when the language was created. Which all seems pretty sensible to me.

Languages that evolve from others, for example B to NB to C, are more problematic because there was probably a continuous series of compilers that grew away from language and towards another. Even once the bootstrapping stage is reached.

Intercal is an interesting case as well because the language existed for 8 years before anyone wrote an implementation of it. Similarly it is not clear to me whether CPL ever had an implementation. In what sense are these computer programming languages? The facts seem to indicate that computer programming languages are more uses than the mere programming of computers, they can be used to express ideas between programmers or mathematicians for example (indeed, programs are speech!), so it isn't even necessary to have an implementation to be called a computer programming language. That was a bit more than I intended to say really. --drj

Even when a language hasn't been implemented it may still be very influential. CPL led to BCPL which led to B which led to C which led to C++, therefore CPL is well worth recording. CPL may well have been implemented in the early 1970s as a student project but it doesn't really matter. The ISWIM language has never been implemented as far as I know, yet the modern functional languages such as ML, Haskell, Miranda, etc. owe a lot to it, so again it is well worth describing. -- Derek Ross

RPG is missing in the timeline! PHP ?

C++ and C with Classes were in "unknown or questionable dates" but need not to since Stroustrup describes the years pretty accurately on his home pages. So I moved them to the normal timeline.

Hard to believe that 1975 Altair has had Steve Allen as a co-author since the first iteration of this article. (BASIC would make a boring talk-show) Dmsar 21:31 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Java definitely has predecessors. Its line of descent is Algol > BCPL > C > C++ You only need to look at its syntax to see that. Why remove C++ ? -- Derek Ross 17:33, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The year headings ("pre 1950s", "1950s", "1960s",...) shouldn't have colspan="3" when there are now 4 columns. For forward compatibiliy, make it colspan="0", ie span all columns. (It's in the W3C standard: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/tables.html#adef-colspan )

FORTRAN IV is listed as originating both in 1962 and 1966. I wasn't around back then so can not claim to be an expert, but all my information suggests 1962. Perhaps the entry in 1966 was meant to be FORTRAN 66? Am new at wikipedia and will attempt to update it if I don't hear back.

Here's a reference which supports my claim re changing it to say FORTRAN 66 instead of FORTRAN IV in 1966: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/languages/fortran/ch1-1.html JMCorey 22:59, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lambda calculus

I have removed the lambda calculus from the list.

The lambda calculus as originally defined and used by Church was not a programming language. It was a notation for clarifying the semantics of free and bound variables. Church's interesting (and surprising) result was that this very simple system can support full arithmetic. It was John McCarthy who took the lambda notation and used it for anonymous functions in Lisp, though he did not actually exploit (or understand!) its full power, which was only done later by Sussman and Steele. If the lambda calculus is going to be in here, then all sorts of other mathematical systems should be, too, including: combinatory logic, finite state automata, regular expressions, and even first-order logic and—why not?—the conventional mathematical notation of functions and operators! All of these have been used as bases for programming languages. --Macrakis 7 July 2005 13:58 (UTC)

[edit] PHP

Our PHP page includes a start date of 1994, and an author of Rasmus Lerdorf, rather than PHP3/1997/unknown as listed in this timeline. Any idea why? Ojw 13:23, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I believe the PHP page is right. But PHP 3 is a rewrite, in 1997, I have added author. Splang 07:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inclusion of languages

I think Fortran 2003 should be included, because it shows how on of the oldest languages is still being developed and in active use. --R.Koot 13:40, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

That's true. This timeline does have a place for minor languages which were very influential or which formed part of the ancestryof major ones: hence Cowsel, ISWIM, and CPL. It also has a place for current development of major languages. But that doesn't mean that it should include all the minor languages ever invented. To do so would lead to a forest/trees problem. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:30, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Could you add Fortan back o the list, please. I don't want to get banned for a 3RR. --R.Koot 13:59, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Legend

Is the legend entirely necessary? I am minded to remove the '*' entry and have blank cells where a language has no direct predecessor. Comments or votes, anyone? - Chris Wood 14:10, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Another point: If the legend is to have any meaning, shouldn't we also abide by its parenthesis notation for designating non-universal proglangs? VISICALC, for instance, is categorized as a domain-specific language, and as such should be marked as non-uni. Or is "universal" to be understood as any language capable of simulating a Turing machine? (in which case a proglang is to be very restricted not to be considered "universal", even though it may be thoroughly impractical for doing anything else than domain-specific tasks). --Wernher 04:22, 17 November 2005 (UTC)