Evolution Of Programming

An Int el lig en t D es ign

Evolution of Programming Languages By Te rr y E va ns 10 ,20 08

A ugu st

In the beginning Early computers had no language. Communication was one-way. The people who ran such systems gave the computer commands by physically flipping switches, or by using cables to connect circuits.

1+1= uh…duh!

Deus ex machina From the physical flipping of switches evolved the first generation programming language known as binary or machine language. The computer is still not very bright. It can only communicate by using ones and zeroes. No program is used, and they still can’t talk to each other. 100101011 00

Eve n wit h thi s new l ang ua ge, t he pro gr amm er ne ed s to wr ite a ne w pro gr am fo r e ac h typ e of co mpu te r.

Huh?

Thi s pr obl em is ca ll ed mac hi ne dep en de nce .

It’s alive! It’s alive!

(well…not really)

1940’s—1950’s The second generation programming language was the next evolutionary step and was called an Assembly Language. Machine dependency was still a problem ,but instead of using 10010110011, assembly language would use a statement like, “mov $0x61,%al. Mov is shorthand for move and “al” is the register to use. What the middle part is, I have no idea. Computers still can’t communicate with each other, but that’s all about change. Is there anybody out there?

Resistance is futile

1957

Programming languages took an evolutionary leap in 1957 when Dr. Grace Murray Hopper developed a computer program called a ‘compiler’. A compiler could take a set of computer instructions written in English and convert it into machine language. This was the first compiler , known as A-0. Programming languages that require the use of a compiler are called Third Generation Languages (3GLS) and the programmers do not have to know the particulars of machine language or assembly language to write programs. This evolutionary leap would be the equivalent of us crawling out of the sea, skipping the growth of a tail and leaping right into having a big brain.

So simple a caveman can use it With the Fourth Generation Programming Languages (4GLS), our evolutionary tale is close to the end. One of the 4GL’s is the structured query language, better known as SQL. As long as the computer has the underlying application package that processes SQL commands, a person with little or no knowledge of programming skills can write simple programs such as SELECT * FROM STUDENT which will list all of the files in a student’s database. Just because we have reached the final programming language, does not mean that programming languages are through evolving. I believe the evolutionary process is just beginning and will have many surprises for us in the future. 1+4=er.. a…doH!

references

Ro ss, M .A . ( 20 05) . S of tw are t ech nol og ie s. In for ma ti on Sys te ms Te chn ol ogy (pp . 7 9-8 2) . Pre nt ice Ha ll .