4 ms·

ANSI C (C89), Fortran 66 and COBOL 61 will easily be the most serious contenders.

by Elv13 9y ago

eesmith 9y ago
I think the OP is looking for something a bit different, not oldest supported programming language but longest time between major updates to the language. This is a bit hard to address because Python does incremental language changes, as well as major changes, while the languages you listed have formal specifications. Python 2 from creation in 2000 to end of new development will be 19 years. Fortran 66 was around for 11 years, replaced by Fortran 77 and then Fortran 90, 95, 2003, and 2008. I think those dates are what the OP is looking for. C89 to C99 was 10 years. Then C11 12 years later. COBOL 61 was followed by 65, 68, 74, 85, and then the poorly supported 2002 followed by 2014. I think a better contender is MUMPS, made an ANSI standard in 1995 and ISO standard in 1999. It's still in use in healthcare and financial applications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS Another contender is Rexx, ANSI X3.274 / 1996. Both Rexx and MUMPS are ranked in the range 50-100 on TIOBE. Then there's FORTH, with FORTH-79, FORTH-83 (both de facto) and then ANS Forth in 1994. But that might be cheating as I think (based on hearsay) most Forth users specialize their implementations rather follow ANS Forth. Those are still in reasonably wide-spread use. I think something like ALGOL, last revised in 1973, is outside of what the OP was thinking about.
- Elv13 9y ago
  Still, ANSI C89 is still being "developed" in the sense modern optimizing compilers still improve the state of the art and their STD (glibc/musl) still supports them as primary targets for development (rather than the newer C99/C11). The same is true for Fortran and COBOL. Both are actively being developed as programming languages. Python2 is both a framework (extended std) and language, so the line is blurry. I would even say that Python2, as a language/runtime, has not been under development since quite a while meanwhile C89 development is still going full speed.

ANSI C (C89), Fortran 66 and COBOL 61 will easily be the most serious contenders.

by Elv13 9y ago

ANSI C (C89), Fortran 66 and COBOL 61 will easily be the most serious contenders.

I think the OP is looking for something a bit different, not oldest supported programming language but longest time between major updates to the language. This is a bit hard to address because Python does incremental language changes, as well as major changes, while the languages you listed have formal specifications. Python 2 from creation in 2000 to end of new development will be 19 years. Fortran 66 was around for 11 years, replaced by Fortran 77 and then Fortran 90, 95, 2003, and 2008. I think those dates are what the OP is looking for. C89 to C99 was 10 years. Then C11 12 years later. COBOL 61 was followed by 65, 68, 74, 85, and then the poorly supported 2002 followed by 2014. I think a better contender is MUMPS, made an ANSI standard in 1995 and ISO standard in 1999. It's still in use in healthcare and financial applications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS Another contender is Rexx, ANSI X3.274 / 1996. Both Rexx and MUMPS are ranked in the range 50-100 on TIOBE. Then there's FORTH, with FORTH-79, FORTH-83 (both de facto) and then ANS Forth in 1994. But that might be cheating as I think (based on hearsay) most Forth users specialize their implementations rather follow ANS Forth. Those are still in reasonably wide-spread use. I think something like ALGOL, last revised in 1973, is outside of what the OP was thinking about.

Elv13 9y ago
Still, ANSI C89 is still being "developed" in the sense modern optimizing compilers still improve the state of the art and their STD (glibc/musl) still supports them as primary targets for development (rather than the newer C99/C11). The same is true for Fortran and COBOL. Both are actively being developed as programming languages. Python2 is both a framework (extended std) and language, so the line is blurry. I would even say that Python2, as a language/runtime, has not been under development since quite a while meanwhile C89 development is still going full speed.