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A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages (2009)

• dkuntz2 13y ago
  Always a good time. Side note: it was last updated in 2010, not 2009.
  • Systemic33 13y ago
    Oh ok thanks, didn't catch that. Title edited :)
• walid 13y ago
  Never goes out of style! Always love reading this author's style of humour.
• pencilcheck 13y ago
  Paul Graham invented lisp… that’s when I stop reading
• nealabq 13y ago
  He fails to mention their musical backgrounds: John McCarthy played with the Beetles and Grace Hopper sang for Jefferson Airplane.
  • nealabq 13y ago
    ... and who could forget Tom Love's performances with the Beach Boys.
  • nealabq 13y ago
    ... or Larry Wall's collaboration with Pink Floyd, before going on the found Perl Jam.
• perturbation 13y ago
  I've never seen this before, it's great! Two that stood out for me: "1991 - Dutch programmer Guido van Rossum travels to Argentina for a mysterious operation. He returns with a large cranial scar, invents Python, is declared Dictator for Life by legions of followers, and announces to the world that "There Is Only One Way to Do It." Poland becomes nervous." Being raised on Perl, I always suspected as much... "1957 - John Backus and IBM create FORTRAN. There's nothing funny about IBM or FORTRAN. It is a syntax error to write FORTRAN while not wearing a blue tie." Fortran remains my Most Hated Language. Of course, I never tried to write Fortran while wearing a tie, so that may explain it. Grumble grumble column major grumble grumble common blocks.