Programming languages (PLs) allow programming computing systems, typically computers. The history of PLs is long, dating from the 1800s in France to the 1900s in England and developing exponentially after the Second World War. Interestingly, while hundreds if not thousands of PLs have been invented since (between 700 and 9,000 depending on the sources), belonging to many different families, there’s been a convergence, a cross-fertilisation, among PLs in recent years. In the following, I briefly recall the history of PLs, present today’s main PLs, and discuss how I see them converging into the “Pythonisation of Java”.
The first documented programming language was invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard to control looms [1], patented in 1804 but based on earlier inventions from the 1800s. The Jacquard control mechanism used punched cards to control the looms and allowed complex patterns, such as brocade, damask and matelassé.
Jacquard’s punch cards inspired Charles Babbage who planned to use punch cards to enter programs and data into his analytical engine [2]. Described in 1837, the analytical engine is probably the first real computer because it had separate controls (the “processor”) and memory. It also took as input both formulae (the “programs”) and data.