Have you ever wondered how software came about? My curious mind has actually been wondering for years how the creation of software started. But it did not come as a surprise that its evolution came with very distinguishable steps. However, compared to hardware creation, software development included few overlapping or parallel processes. The very first programming ever recorded was one made by Jacquard in 1804. He was the one responsible for the technology used in punch card feeding. This particular technology was later adapted by IBM (Recording and Tabulating Company) which they used to process data.
Various modifications came after but the greatest leap in software development only came when assembly languages were invented. Assembly language, also called as the assembler, is basically a unique computer language that directs CPU operations. This low-level programming language is designed not only for computers but also for microcontrollers and microprocessors. The very first programming languages were mainly composed of codes.
John Von Neumann contributed two major contributions in the line of computer software development and programming languages. The first concept he introduced was referred as the ‘shared-program technique’, while the second concept was referred to as the ‘conditional control transfer’.
The Short Code language emerged after Neumann introduced these concepts in 1949. This was the first ever coding language that was used in electronic devices. Programmers coding this computer language had to manually change statements using 0’s and 1’s. By 1951, the first compiler was made by Grace Hopper. The compiler was designed to translate computer language statements to 0’s and 1’s so the computer will easily understand them. Because of the invention of the compiler, programmers do not need to do the work manually thus leading to faster programming.
By 1957, the very first major programming language emerged, the FORTRAN (Formula Translating System). FORTRAN was the crowning glory of IBM in the line of scientific computing around that time. It used simple components thus allowing programmers to gain low-level access. However, FORTRAN was a bit restrictive since it only require the use of GOTO, DO and IF statements. But during this time, this was already considered as a big step forward in the field of programming.
While FORTRAN was excellent in handling numbers, it was not good in managing input and output. By 1959, business computing began to take off, and so the need for a programming language ideal for handling input and output became paramount. This is when COBOL was invented.
By 1958, the Algol language was developed. This made a great contribution to the development of other programming languages such as the C language. Dennis Ritchie developed C while he was working in the Bells Lab. C language was first used in the Unix system which was also created around the time C was developed. The C language provided Unix some unique features which include multi-tasking, forking, dynamic variables and input-output. Since then, C has been the popular language used in other operating systems like Window, Linux and even MacOS. An upgraded and modified version of C, later referred as ‘C++’, was introduced in 1983. Known as C with classes, this programming language was created to harness the real power of Bjarne Stroustroup’s OOP or Object Oriented Programming.
When the Information Age began, more programming languages were developed and introduced. Today, programming languages have already come a long way. But although computer programming languages used these days are equipped with better and advanced features, developers still continue to improve them in order to provide people with better user experience.