C Programming BCA-TU

Unit-1: Programming Language

Introduction to Programming Language

What is a language?
Language is the mechanism of communication to share ideas, thoughts, and opinions with each
other. For instance, if we want to communicate with someone, we need a language that can be any
of the languages that both the communicators’ know. It can be English, Hindi, Spanish, or another
language. But you need at least one language to communicate with someone (human/person).
What is a programming language?

Programming language is how we can talk to computers. It's a lot like English but it's kind of
quirky too. Unlike people, machines cannot guess our intent. We have to be super meticulous and
describe what we want in every little detail.

To communicate with a person, you need a language. In the same way, if you need to communicate
with the computer, you need a programming language. Without a programming language, you
cannot communicate with the computer.

A programming language is a set of rules that provide a way of telling computer what operation to
perform. A programming language include set of rules for communication. It provides a linguistic
framework for describe computations. A programming language is a notational system for
describing computation in a machine readable and human readable form. A programming
language is a tool for developing executable models for a class or problem domain. English is a
natural language, it has words, symbols and grammatical rules. Similarly each programming
language has a different set of syntax rules. Programming language can be used to create programs
that control the behavior of a computer and server any purpose.

Hence, programming language is the medium of communication between human and computer systems. It
is the set of instructions written in a specific style (coding) to instruct the computer to perform a specific
task.

History of Programming Language

Most computer programming languages were inspired by or built upon concepts from previous
computer programming languages. Today, while older languages still serve as a strong foundation
for new ones, newer computer programming languages make programmers’ work simpler

The first computer programming language was created in 1883, when a woman named Ada
Lovelace worked with Charles Babbage on his very early mechanical computer, the Analytical
Engine. While Babbage was concerned with simply computing numbers, Lovelace saw that the
numbers the computer worked with could represent something other than just amounts of things.
She wrote an algorithm for the Analytical Engine that was the first of its kind. Because of her
contribution, Lovelace is credited with creating the first computer programming language. As
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different needs have arisen and new devices have been created, many more languages have
followed.

1883: Algorithm for the Analytical Engine: Created by Ada Lovelace for Charles Babbage’s
Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers, it’s considered to be the first computer Commented [SoI1]: Bernoulli numbers are used in
programming language. some series expansions of several
functions (trigonometric, hyperbolic, gamma,
etc.), and are extremely important in number theory
1949: Assembly Language: First widely used in the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic and analysis.
Calculator, assembly language is a type of low-level computer programming language that
simplifies the language of machine code, the specific instructions needed to tell the computer what
to do.

1952: Autocode: Autocode was a generic term for a family of early computer programming
languages. The first was developed by Alick Glennie for the Mark 1 computer at the University of
Manchester in the U.K. Some consider auto code to be the first compiled computer programming
language, meaning that it can be translated directly into machine code using a program called a
compiler.

1957: FORTRAN: A computer programming language created by John Backus for complicated
scientific, mathematical, and statistical work, FORTRAN stands for Formula Translation. It is
the one of the oldest computer programming languages still used today.

1958: Algol: Created by a committee for scientific use, Algol stands for Algorithmic Language.
Algol served as a starting point in the development of languages such as Pascal, C, C++, and Java.

1959: COBOL: Created by Dr. Grace Murray Hopper as a computer programming language that
could run on all brands and types of computers, COBOL stands
for COmmon Business Oriented Language. It is used in ATMs, credit card processing, telephone
systems, hospital and government computers, automotive systems, and traffic signals. In the
movie The Terminator, pieces of COBOL source code were used in the Terminator’s vision
display.

1959: LISP: Created by John McCarthy of MIT, LISP is still in use. It stands for LISt Processing
language. It was originally created for artificial intelligence research but today can be used in
situations where Ruby or Python are used.

1964: BASIC: Developed by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College so
that students who did not have a strong technical or mathematical understanding could still use
computers, it stands for Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. A modified version
of BASIC was written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. This was to become the first Microsoft
product.

1970: Pascal: Developed by Niklaus Wirth, Pascal was named in honor of the French
mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Blaise Pascal. It is easy to learn and was originally
created as a tool for teaching computer programming. Pascal was the main language used for
software development in Apple’s early years.
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1972: Smalltalk: Developed by Alan Kay, Adele Goldberg, and Dan Ingalls at Xerox Palo Alto
Research Center, Smalltalk allowed computer programmers to modify code on the fly and also
introduced other aspects now present in common computer programming languages including
Python, Java, and Ruby.

1972: C: Developed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs, C is considered by many to be the first high-
level language. A high-level computer programming language is closer to human language and
more removed from the machine code? C was created so that an operating system called UNIX
could be used on many different types of computers. It has influenced many other languages,
including Ruby, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, and Python.

1972: SQL: SQL was developed by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce at IBM. SQL
stands for Structured Query Language. It is used for viewing and changing information that is
stored in databases. SQL uses command sentences called queries to add, remove, or view data.

1978: MATLAB: Developed by Cleve Moler. MATLAB stands for Matrix Laboratory. It is one
of the best computer programming languages for writing mathematical programs and is mainly
used in mathematics, research, and education. It can also be used to create two- and three-
dimensional graphics.
1983: Objective-C: Created by Brad Cox and Tom Love, Objective-C is the main computer
programming language used when writing software for macOS and iOS, Apple’s operating
systems.
1983: C++: C++ is an extension of the C language and was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup. It is
one of the most widely used languages in the world. C++ is used in game engines and high-
performance software like Adobe Photoshop. Most packaged software is still written in C++.
1987: Perl: Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a scripting language designed
for text editing. Its purpose was to make report processing easier. It is now widely used for many
purposes, including Linux system administration, Web development, and network programming.
1990: Haskell: Named after Haskell Brooks Curry, an American logician and mathematician.
Haskell is called a purely functional computer programming language, which basically means that
it is mostly mathematical. It is used by many industries, especially those that deal with complicated
calculations, records, and number-crunching.
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1991: Python: Designed by Guido Van Rossum, Python is easier to read and requires fewer lines
of code than many other computer programming languages. It was named after the British comedy
group Monty Python. Popular sites like Instagram use frameworks that are written in Python.
1991: Visual Basic: Developed by Microsoft, Visual Basic allows programmers to choose and
change pre-selected chunks of code in a drag-and-drop fashion through a graphical user interface
(GUI).
1993: R: Developed by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman at the University Of Auckland, New
Zealand, R is named after the first names of the first two authors. It is mostly used by statisticians
and those performing different types of data analysis.
1994: PHP: Created by Rasmus Lerdorf, PHP is used mostly for Web development and is usually
run on Web servers. It originally stood for Personal Home Page, as it was used by Lerdorf to
manage his own online information. PHP is now widely used to build websites and blogs.
WordPress, a popular website creation tool, is written using PHP.
1995: Java: Originally called Oak, Java was developed by Sun Microsystems. It was intended for
cable boxes and hand-held devices but was later enhanced so it could be used to deliver information
on the World Wide Web. Java is everywhere, from computers to smartphones to parking meters.
Three billion devices run Java!
1995: Ruby: Ruby was created by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, who combined parts of his
favorite languages to form a new general-purpose computer programming language that can
perform many programming tasks. It is popular in Web application development. Ruby code
executes more slowly, but it allows for computer programmers to quickly put together and run a
program.
1995: JavaScript: Created in just 10 days by Brendan Eich, this language is mostly used to
enhance many Web browser interactions. Almost every major website uses JavaScript.
2000: C#: Developed by Microsoft with the goal of combining the computing ability of C++ with
the simplicity of Visual Basic, C# is based on C++ and is similar to Java in many aspects. It is
used in almost all Microsoft products and is primarily used for developing desktop applications.
2003: Scala: Created by Martin Odersky. Scala is a computer programming language that
combines functional programming, which is mathematical, with object-oriented programming,
which is organized around data that controls access to code. Its compatibility with Java makes it
helpful in Android development.

2003: Groovy: Developed by James Strachan and Bob McWhirter, Groovy is derived from Java
and improves the productivity of developers because it is easy to learn and concise.
2009: Go: Go was developed by Google to address problems that can occur in large software
systems. Since computer and technology use is much different today than it was when languages
such as C++, Java, and Python were introduced and put to use, problems arose when huge
computer systems became common. Go was intended to improve the working environment for
programmers so they could write, read, and maintain large software systems more efficiently.
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2009:Node.js: Node.js was written initially by Ryan Dahl in 2009, about thirteen years after the
introduction of the first server-side JavaScript environment, Netscape's LiveWire Pro Web. The
initial release supported only Linux and Mac OS X. Its development and maintenance was led by
Dahl and later sponsored by Joyent.
2011: React: It was created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook, who released an
early prototype of React called "FaxJS". He was influenced by XHP, an HTML component library
for PHP. It was first deployed on Facebook's News Feed in 2011 and later on Instagram in 2012.
It was open-sourced at JSConf US in May 2013.
2011: Dart: The project was founded by Lars Bak and Kasper Lund. Dart is a client-optimized
programming language for apps on multiple platforms. It is developed by Google and is used to
build mobile, desktop, server, and web applications. Dart is an object-oriented, class-based,
garbage-collected language with C-style syntax. Dart can compile to either native code or
JavaScript.
2014: Swift: Developed by Apple as a replacement for C, C++, and Objective-C, Swift is
supposed to be easier to use and allows less room for mistakes. It is versatile and can be used for
desktop and mobile apps and cloud services.