Skip to main content

The origins of computer programming

Modern computers can process large amounts of data. Before the current computers we can only refer to the analytical machine of Charles Babbage; This machine performed calculations thanks to the rotation of gear wheels. Countess Ada Lovelace participates in the creation of Charles Babbage's analytical machine by decoding the language to make it work; US Department of Defense dedicates the ADA programming language in the name of the Countess. 

The role of women in computer science 

Apparently, the position of women in the history of computer programming seems to cut out only a marginal role; in reality, it is not so! As already mentioned in the previous paragraph; without the contribution that Countess Ada Lovelace left to the world of information technology; this science could be decades behind.

The origins of computer programming languages 

The origins of programming languages were determined by a mechanical and mostly experimental approach; with reference to the analytical engine, even if it would have been perfectly functional to carry out calculations, it could only process one instruction at a time.

The origins of computer programming
Reproductions of the analytical engine

Limitations of the first programming languages

The programming of the first short code processors in Assembly, difficult in the form of flow control with the conditional jump instructions due to the continuous jumps from one point to another in the program; paves the way for high-level programming languages.

From the origins of computer programming to the first high-level languages

The first high-level programming language was Plankalkül, in German (computation of programs) by Konrad Zuse; developed in neutral Switzerland, during the Second World War (between 1942 and 1946) but published only in 1972. The Plankalkül was never used for didactic purposes or for programming but five years after Konrad's death; in 2000 a compiler was created by the Technische Universität Berlin, which demonstrated the validity of the programming language with advanced features typical of high-level ones.

The origins of high-level programming

Among the first high-level languages to achieve some popularity was Fortran developed in 1957 by John Backus. Later the Fortran also influenced the writing of the BASIC language of John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz, published in 1964. In addition to the conditional IF jump, this new generation of languages offered flow control structures such as WHILE loops, FOR and the CASE and SWITCH statements; which eliminated the use of GOTO making the code clearer and easier to manage.

The most common programming languages

Here are some of the most popular programming languages that have stood out for the desktop environment over the past few decades.
  • The C language,
  • Java,
  • C ++,
  • Visual Basic,
  • Basic,
  • Python.
With the advent of the internet, server-side scripting languages for applications hosted on websites emerged
  • Php,
  • Asp,
  • JSP,
  • ECMA script,
  • Ruby
The client-side languages for creating websites are these:
  • Html,
  • CSS,
  • JavaScript.
The ranking of the most used programming languages in the world is constantly updated; as can be seen both here and at the antagonist site which however uses different methods of evaluation.

Ranking of programming languages 2021
Ranking of programming languages 2021

Conclusions and Curiosity

In these times, technology in the IT field is directed towards artificial intelligence; although not with the same successes and, at a primitive level, the first to use it in the statistical field, combined with the game was Lovelace.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learn to use the computer

Many people use the PC every day to connect to the network and to work but without knowing what the computer is and wondering how this is possible. We put a computer to work every time we buy with a credit card, withdraw from an ATM, pay a postal order, buy a train ticket, play video games and many other things. Understanding how the PC works inside is too much but starting from its components and the origins of  IT is already a good start. Learn to use the computer Basic computer components The computer is made up of several electronic components on printed circuits that interact with each other via micro pulses; if you want to learn how to use the computer, the main components of a PC are: A central processing unit (CPU); the "processor" used to process active processes on the data before outgoing transmission. RAM memories (random access memory) in which the bytes for processing are loaded; it is the dynamic memory of the computer and it is volatile; A graphics processing...
Post a Comment
Read more

Introduction to the JavaScript language

In this introduction to the JavaScript language we discover one of the programming languages that has changed the concept of understanding the Web. The added value of JavaScript to the HTML code is to make the Web page dynamic in its interactions with the user. JavaScript is a client-side web programming language. Web 2.0 was born with the JavaScript language. The advantages of the JavaScript JavaScript or "JS" in its abbreviated form; is the most widely used client-side scripting language on the web. The advantage of the JavaScript is that it can be interpreted by almost all browsers; while what has allowed a strong expansion is the availability of many frameworks and libraries that can be easily integrated into scripts. The language is unique in its kind for data exchange thanks to the asynchronous AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) functions that allow you to interact with users without reloading web pages and to exchange data in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) for...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to insert JavaScript into web pages

You have learned everything there is to know about HTML and CSS to start building your static website and now you would like to make it dynamic but you don't know how to insert JavaScript into web pages; right? Don't worry! Inserting the scripts into html files is really a breeze. If you read this article, in the next five minutes you will discover all the methods for inserting JavaScript into html files. How to insert JavaScript into HTML file JavaScript need HTML file to work.  Like CSS all methods of inserting JavaScript into a Web Page can be divided into two sections; add the scripts inside the TAG of  HTML file or by calling them externally. In detail we can insert JavaScript: Directly into Body of the HTML file. In the Head Tag and recall it in the body. With a relative or absolute external reference. Insert JavaScript into HTML file We will see an example of how to insert JavaScript shortly but first let's focus on when it is useful to do an explicit or implicit ...
Post a Comment
Read more