Talk:History of programming languages

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To-do list for History of programming languages: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2014-04-30 Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Expand : * ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages Conference: http://research.ihost.com/hopl/HOPL.html, http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1238844&picked=prox&cfid=13375123&cftoken=23072698 Functional languages: ISWIM, etc.

From Wikipedia:Cleanup#September_12 ...

• History of programming languages - no prose; just a list of links to articles about programming languages arranged in order of their invention; doesn't make any sense --Szyslak

I've turned this into a list of major programming laguages with years, and see also to Timeline of programming languages. I leave it to others to put in historical prose. ;-) -- sabre23t 03:09, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Someone has suggested that some of the HOPL page content be merged in here. I, for one, dislike this idea. HOPL is a unique conference in that it goes into depth on important languages (once every 15 years). As part of the preparation for HOPL III, the program committee is trying to create a community view of the history of the classes of languages covered by the HOPL III. Hence the history material in the HOPL III page is not a fully general history, rather it concentrates on material associated with the specific information to be in the conference. We would like the experiment to continue here on Wikipedia --n2cjn
  • I would concur. HOPL is a very specific and well-defined topic. I'm a little surprised that it has its own entry, but it serves little purpose to merge it with this entry. A B Carter (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• It seems as if there is no more discussion regarding merger at this time. Can we remove the link on the main page? --n2cjn

I removed part of a sentence that talked about Hollerith punched cards being the same size as the dollar bill, because:

• it's irrelevant to this "History of Programming Languages" article.
• it's already covered (in more detail) in Punched card.
• it's probably just an urban legend, anyway.

T-bonham (talk) 08:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there no mention of SNOBOL (esp SNOBOL4)? This was an influential language, and not merely because of a "string-oriented" paradigm. It was much more "high-level" than LISP, more on the level of APL in that regard. VinnieMan (talk) 02:57, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First, I want to congratulate all who made this article so well-written.

Now, shouldn't it also mention shell scripting languages beginning in the (70s?)? It seems that a defining feature of this paradigm is the emphasis on files, in contrast to, say C. -Pgan002 (talk) 02:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Outstanding job people!!! I saw a lot of that history first hand, and this article does an excellent job of documenting a difficult subject. 20:12, 26 May 2010 (codeslinger) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.229.1.210 (talk)

Currently, the content of the "Current trends" section reads a lot like a collection of personal opinions and original research, and does not have any citations and sources as attribution for the trends listed.

The listed trends do not seem outright bad or removed from reality, but they should definitely at least be backed up with attributions to sources that claim them. Does anybody know of an appropriate paper, survey, or publication that could be attributed for some of these?

--Piet Delport (talk) 13:32, 14 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The previous revision included "M6 14:18" in the citation. Any ideas what this meant? I removed it as there was no obvious place in Template:Cite book. Paul2520 (talk) 18:19, 21 May 2015 (UTC)OJFPOIKJSVOLWSAK,EZ[FDP;LSA,FC;L VC PSKF SACPoakmfd D;ÓKQD0-[reply]

At first I thought this was a simple typo, minor correction, but now that I look at it, I'm not so sure what is the best change. The current sentence in the "Early History" section of the article is:

  Turing machines set the basis for storage of programs as data is in the von neuman   architecture of computers by representing a machine through a finite number. 

I suppose it is possible that this is exactly the sentence the author intended, and it is then very suitable. But most likely, I thought they left out a word and intended to write:

  Turing machines set the basis for storage of programs as data in the von Neumann   architecture of computers by representing a "machine instruction"  through a finite number. 

Alternatively, the author wants to use a word like "state" or "symbol" then latter being most correct, but then needing more explanation to fit the context and point. How about avoiding this all with an alternate framing of the thought, such as:

  Turing machines set the basis for storage of programs as data in the von Neumann   architecture of computers by having information stored on a readable tape. 

But I'd like to just put that as my suggestion, not feeling like I should just make the edit.

MarkGoldfain (talk) 23:38, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See this revert on IEEE Fellow. He's I've only listed Alan (and Jeff), but at Julia's page: "Designed by Jeff Bezanson, Alan Edelman, Stefan Karpinski, Viral B. Shah" comp.arch (talk) 21:20, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• The article currently has a bit of an abrupt start, diving directly into some of the initial milestones in the development of high level languages. I'm going to look into making some edits here; any assistance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
• The current content starts to get a bit specific on the early history of FORTRAN. The lead doesn't seem like the best place for this, so I consolidated it with FORTRAN's section in First programming languages.
• I added in a two-sentence lead. I feel that the general trend of the history of programming languages is a transformation from obscure, specialized instructions to modern, readable high-level languages, so I attempted to summarize this.

Segfaulty (talk) 16:33, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Swift logo with text.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:52, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A beginner's person coming in to read the article would be inundated with historical references and technical terms that would mean near gibberish/nonsense to a person new to the history of computers and programming languages. I feel that this issue isn't just with this article in particular but with many Wikipedia articles in general. Is Wikipedia's purpose to allow people to learn or to just pile information in one whole word splurge? 124.168.91.91 (talk) 14:15, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is it just for me, or the display of pdf for Plankalkül is broken (most of the letters is missing) under Firefox 101.0.1 (Win 7 32bit)?
In Edge it displays correctly (well, except screenshots, but those seems to be universally broken [in FF, Edge and Foxit PDF Reader]). MarMi wiki (talk) 20:56, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss what is meant by “high level programming language” and give examples of these. 102.70.3.215 (talk) 10:34, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]