Programming Languages List



Jul 21, 2020 Other sources that only list notable languages still count up to an impressive 245 languages. Another list called HOPL, that claims to include every programming language to ever exist, puts the total number of programming languages at 8,945. Some even estimate a total of up to 25,000. List of Programming Languages. A programming language is a set of instructions designed to produce various types of outputs. Programming languages help us solve real-life problems. The general purpose of programming languages is to provide us with a convenient method of passing instructions to a computer. In the early 1970s, programming languages like C were introduced. Pop parameters. The pop method takes a single argument (index).; The argument passed to the method is optional. If not passed, the default index -1 is passed as an argument (index of the last item).

Unless it is specified, the date is for the first working implementation.
More details about the languages in the History of language. Any comment is welcomed.

1948

  • Plankalkül. First high-level language. The date is that of the first public description.

1949

  • Short Code.

1951

  • A-0 (starting work for Math-Matic).

1952

  • Autocode.

1955

  • FLOW-MATIC. By Grace Hopper, first language with words.

1956

  • IPL.

1957

  • Fortran.
  • Math-Matic.

1958

  • Fortran II.
  • Lisp, work begins by John Mc Carthy at MIT.
  • ALGOL 58 also called IAL (International Algorithmic Language). Original specification by a comitee of European and American computer scientists.
  • IAL.
  • UNCOL. First intermediate language for a virtual machine.

1959

  • Lisp 1.5.
  • COBOL, work begins.

1960

  • ALGOL 60. Revision of ALGOL 58, and first implementation.
  • APL, work begins.
  • COBOL defined.
  • First JIT functions used for Lisp.

1962

  • APL implemented.
  • Fortran IV appears.
  • SNOBOL, work begins.
  • Simula.

1963

  • ALGOL 60 is revised.
  • CPL. Universities of Cambridge and of London. Extended version of Algol 60. Predecessor of BCPL.
  • PL/1, work begins.
  • Joss.

1964

  • Apl-360 is implemented.
  • Basic.
  • PL/1.
  • COWSEL. Renamed POP-1 in 1966, sort of Lisp without parenthesis.
  • MATHLAB. Became popular since MATHLAB 68.

1965

  • Snobol 3.

1966

  • Bcpl .
  • Fortran 66.
  • Lisp 2.
  • Logo, work begins.
  • ISWIM.

1967

  • Snobol 4.
  • Simula 67. First language with objets. They interact by calling methods of other object, a design taken by C++ and many other language. First also to implement coroutines.
  • Mumps.

1968

  • ALGOL 68.
  • Altran (a fortran variant).
  • COBOL officially defined by ANSI.
  • Pascal - work begins.
  • Logo implemented.
  • Refal. Goal-oriented pattern-matching, simpler than Prolog (1970).
  • QED: The scripting language of the editor uses regular expressions and one of first JIT interpreters, designed by Ken Thompson.

1969

  • PL/I Implementation.
  • B. Précurseur de C et C++.
  • Planner.

1970

  • Prolog - work begins.
  • Smalltalk - work begins. Fully object oriented, they communicate by sending messages, a design taken by Objective-C.
  • Pascal.
  • MUMPS designed.
  • POP-2. Seems to be the first functional language, applying lambda calculus.

1971

  • PL-11.

1972

  • Description of Plankalkül published.
  • C.
  • Prolog implemented.
  • Intercal.
  • SASL. Purely functional, based on ISWIM.

1973

  • Comal.
  • Forth. First stack-based language, a principle applied to the Java virtual machine.
  • ML. Influenced most functional languages including Haskell, Erlang and OCaml.
  • Golux. Hayes described a procedural and logic language but did not implement it.

1974

  • COBOL, second ANSI specification.

1975

  • Tiny Basic, runs on a microcomputer.
  • Basic, from Bill Gates and Paul Allen implemented on Altair, an 8080-based microcomputer by Mits.
  • Scheme. Sort of Lisp.
  • MATLAB.
  • CLU. Invented iterator and generator with the yield keyword.

1976

  • DSL, Design System Language, ancestor of PostScript.

1977

Types Of Programming Languages And Their Uses

  • AWK. For text processing.
  • Forth.
  • Mumps - ANSI standard. Later renamed M.
  • Ada, work begins.
  • FIG-Forth, implementation of Forth.
  • UCSD Pascal, on PDP-11 and Z80-based computers.
  • Modula, work begins.
  • IDL.
  • Bourne Shell.
  • Icon. Goal-oriented.

1978

  • Fortran 77 ansi standard defined.

1979

  • Rexx.
  • Icon implemented.

1980

  • Smalltalk-80.
  • Modula-2.
  • C++.

1981

  • Common LISP work begins.
  • Fifth Generation Computer System project based upon Prolog in Japan.

1982

  • ISO Pascal.
  • Objective C.

1983

  • Ada implemented.
  • C compilers for microcomputers by Microsoft and also Digital.
  • C++ implemented.
  • Turbo Pascal (advertised in Byte, great success).

1984

  • Apl 2.
  • Clipper.

1985

  • Forth used to control a submersible that locates the wreck of the Titanic.
  • Oberon started.
  • Snobol 4 for microcomputers.
  • Postscript delivered on a printer.
  • AMPL. For modeling.
  • Caml.
  • Miranda. Functional, strongly inspired Haskell.

1986

  • Smalltalk/V for microcomputers.
  • Turbo Prolog.
  • Actor.
  • Eiffel.
  • Erlang by Joe Armstrong.
  • C++ achieved.

1987

  • Hypertalk.
  • Perl.
  • SQL 87.

1988

  • Oberon implemented.
  • Tcl.

1989

  • ANSI C specification published.
  • C++ 2.0 defined with multiple inheritance.
  • Modula 3.
  • Miranda.

1990

  • C++ 2.1 , defined with templates and exception-handling.
  • Fortran 90 adds case statements and derived types.
  • J language.
  • Haskell.

1991

  • Python.
  • Visual Basic.

1992

  • Dylan.
  • Disco.

1993

  • AppleScript.
  • Self. Inspired by Smalltalk, uses a JIT interpreter before Java was invented.
  • Lua.

1994

  • Java. Preliminary version.

1995

  • Java, first public release with the HotJava browser on May 23.
  • Ada 95 - ISO revision includes OOP added support for real-time systems.
  • JavaScript.
  • PHP.
  • Delphi, version of Pascal.
  • Ruby.
  • Mercury.

1996

  • NetRexx.
  • OCalm.

1997

  • ECMAScript (Standard for JavaScript).
  • Rebol .

1998

  • Erlang open source.

1999

  • Standard C99.
  • Standard ECMAScript 1.5.
  • Moto.

2000

  • C Scharp (C#).
  • D. A version of C++ with dynamic arrays and garbage collector.

2001

  • Aspect J.
  • Scriptol.
  • SuperX++.

2003

  • Factor.

2004

  • PHP 5.
  • Scala.
  • Boo, derived from Python.
  • ActionScript.

2005

  • Scriptol Interpreter.
  • JavaFX Script.
  • F#.

2006

  • Objective Modula 2.
  • Rust. System language as C.
  • Cyclone.
  • Haxe.

2007

  • Clojure.
  • Nu.
  • Scratch (MIT).
Computer programming languages list

2008

  • EGL (IBM). Compiled into other high level languages. Evolution of a tool created in 1981.
  • Objective J.

2009

  • Agena.
  • Crack. Scripting language by Google, with a C++ syntax.
  • Go. System and server language by Google, replaces both C, C++ or Python.
  • Noop.
  • CoffeeScript.

2010

  • Ani. All statements run concurrently in this language.
  • Fabric.
  • Gosu.
  • Julia. Mathematical language compatible with C throught LLVM. Open sourced in 2012.

2011

  • Dart. A JavaScript replacement by Google.
  • DRAKON. Graphical language of specifications but with a universal use.
  • Xtend. A successor to Java by the Eclipse Foundation.
  • C++11. New version of C++.
  • Pure. Functional language.
  • Deca. System programming.
  • Clay. Generic programming.
  • Red. Rebol-like.
  • Rust. Concurrent system language, alternative to C, by Mozilla. First compiler in 2012, used by the Servo rendering engine.
  • Xtend. A Java pre-compiler by the Eclipse Foundation.
  • Squirrel. Object oriented scripting language.

2012

  • Blocky. Visual language by Google.
  • Halide. Graphic language by the MIT.
  • TypeScript. By Microsoft, alternative to Dart but compiled into JavaScript.
  • Ceylon. By Red Hat. Similar to Dart or TypeScript but compiles into Java bytecode.
  • Elixir. A clean version of Erlang.
  • LLJS. Low Level JavaScript is intermediate between C and JavaScript and compiles in JavaScript.
  • Kotlin. By JetBrain, for the JVM.
  • Quorum. OOL with a clean syntax for the JVM.
  • Elm. Functional and reactive. JS frontend.

Programming Languages

2013

  • Asm.js. Not a language in itself, but a subset of JavaScript with an AOT compiler. This is especially a new way to make applications.
  • BODOL. Functional, Lisp-like language.
  • Wolfram. Interface to Mathematica, for knowledge processing and symbolic computation.

2014

  • Dotty. By one of authors of Scala, and derived from Scala.
  • Hack. By Facebook, a version of PHP statically typed.
  • Jeeves. By Jean Yang. A language adapted to protect user privacy. Implemented like extensions to Scala and Python.
  • Swift. By Apple to remplace Objective-C on MacOS or iOS.
  • Wyvern by Carnegie Mellon University, for high-assurance apps.
  • Avail. Amost natural language.
  • Loci. C++ less the complexity, compatibility through the LLVM code.

2015

  • Crystal. Compiled language with the syntax of Ruby.

2016

  • Simit. MIT, created to replace Matlab, syntax of Julia but compile to C++.
  • Zig. A parody language from Mozilla which imitates Rust.

2017

  • WebAssembly. W3C, intermediate language running in the browser.
  • Hobbes. Morgan Stanley Bank. To be used standalone of as a pattern-matching extension to C++.

2019

  • Bosque. By Microsoft. Another C-like designed to be simple while introducing new designs in programming.
For the alphabetical order, see the complete list.

If you’re new to the field of software development, the toughest part of learning programming is deciding where to begin. There are hundreds of programming languages in widespread use, each with its own complexities and idiosyncrasies.

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The good news is that as you begin your journey as a software developer, you’ll start to discover which programming language will be most suitable for you, your interests, and your career goals.

In the list below, we go over the best and most in-demand programming languages for many of the most common use cases including web development, mobile development, game development, and more.

1. JavaScript

It’s impossible to be a software developer these days without using JavaScript in some way. According to Stack Overflow's 2020 Developer Survey, JavaScript is the most popular language among developers for the eighth year in a row. Nearly 70 percent of survey respondents reported that they had used JavaScript in the past year.

Along with HTML and CSS, JavaScript is essential to front-end web development. A majority of the web’s most popular sites, from Facebook and Twitter to Gmail and YouTube, rely on JavaScript to create interactive web pages and dynamically display content to users.

Although JavaScript is primarily a front-end language run on the browser, it can also be used on the server-side through Node.js to build scalable network applications. Node.js is compatible with Linux, SunOS, Mac OS X, and Windows.

Because JavaScript has a forgiving, flexible syntax and works across all major browsers, it is one of the friendliest programming languages for beginners.

In the video below, learn why we chose to focus our curriculum on Javascript back in 2012 and why our founders continue to stick with the programming language for 2021 and beyond.

2. Swift

If you’re interested in Apple products and mobile app development, Swift is a good place to start. First announced by Apple in 2014, Swift is a relatively new programming language used to develop iOS and macOS applications.

Swift has been optimized for performance and built from the ground up to match the realities of modern iOS development. Not only does iOS run on every iPhone and iPad, but it’s also the basis for other operating systems such as watchOS (for Apple Watches) and tvOS (for Apple TVs). In addition, Apple isn't going anywhere as a tech industry leader, and iOS apps continue to be the most profitable in the mobile app marketplace.

3. Scala

If you’re familiar with Java—a classic programming language in its own right—it’s worth checking out its modern cousin, Scala. Scala combines the best features of Java (such as its Object-Oriented Structure and its lightning-fast JVM runtime environment) with a modern twist.

As a functional programming language, Scala allows engineers to elevate the quality of their code to resemble pure math. Scala allows for concurrent programming, allowing complex procedures to be executed in parallel. Furthermore, it is a strongly typed language. Engineers can create and customize their own data types, allowing them to have the peace of mind knowing entire swaths of bugs are impossible at runtime.

4. Go

One of the core languages favored by Google, Go is the little language that could. As a low-level language, Go is ideal for engineers who want to enter the field of systems programming. It encompasses much of the same functionality of C and C++ without the difficult syntax and steep learning curve. It’s the perfect language for building web servers, data pipelines, and even machine-learning packages.

As a compiled language, Go runs “close to the metal,” allowing for a blazing-fast runtime. It’s an open-source language, and ambitious developers can see their personal contributions adopted and enjoyed by programmers worldwide.

5. Python

Python is perhaps the most user-friendly programming language of any on this list. It’s often said that Python’s syntax is clear, intuitive, and almost English-like, which, like Java, makes it a popular choice for beginners.

Also like Java, Python has a variety of applications that make it a versatile, powerful option when choosing the best programming language for your use case. If you’re interested in back-end web development, for example, then the open-source Django framework, written in Python, is popular, easy to learn, and feature-rich. Django has been used in the development of some popular sites like Mozilla, Instagram, and Spotify.

Python also has packages such as NumPy and SciPy that are commonly used in the fields of scientific computing, mathematics, and engineering. Other Python libraries such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, and OpenCV are used to build programs in data science, machine learning, image processing, and computer vision. Python's science and data applications make it a great choice for the academically inclined.

6. Elm

One of the youngest languages on our list, what began as a Harvard student’s thesis has now grown to become a point of passion for front-end developers around the world.

Elm compiles to JavaScript, making it ideal for building fast-executing UIs with zero errors at runtime. Elm is a functional programming language, allowing developers to create client-side interfaces without the declarative trappings of HTML and CSS.

Furthermore, the Elm web architecture was the intellectual inspiration for Redux, the state-management library taught here at Fullstack.

7. Ruby

Ruby is another scripting language that’s commonly used for web development. In particular, it’s used as the basis for the popular Ruby on Rails web application framework.

Beginners often gravitate toward Ruby because it has a reputation for having one of the friendliest and most helpful user communities. The Ruby community even has an unofficial saying, “Matz is nice and so we are nice,” encouraging members to model their kind and considerate behavior on Ruby’s chief inventor Yukihiro Matsumoto.

In addition to the active community and its straightforward syntax, Ruby is also a good language to pick up thanks to its association with great tech businesses. Twitter, Airbnb, Bloomberg, Shopify, and countless other startups have all built their websites using Ruby on Rails at some point.

8. C#

Like C++, C# (pronounced C Sharp) is a general-purpose, object-oriented language built on the foundations of C. It was originally designed by Microsoft as part of its .NET framework for building Windows applications.

C# uses a syntax that’s similar to other C-derived languages such as C++, so it’s easy to pick up if you’re coming from another language in the C family. C# is not only the go-to for Microsoft app development, but it’s also the language mobile developers use to build cross-platform apps on the Xamarin platform.

Additionally, anyone who is interested in VR development should consider learning C#. C# is the recommended language for building 3D and 2D video games using the popular Unity game engine, which produces one-third of the top games on the market.

9. Rust

Rust is a bit of an upstart among the other languages on this list, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a valuable language to learn. Stack Overflow’s 2020 Developer Survey found that Rust was the most loved programming language among developers for the fifth year in a row, with 86.1 percent of Rust developers saying that they want to continue working with it.

Developed by the Mozilla Corporation, Rust, like C and C++, is intended primarily for low-level systems programming. What Rust adds to the mix, however, is an emphasis on speed and security. Rust emphasizes writing “safe code” by preventing programs from accessing parts of memory that they shouldn’t, which can cause unexpected behavior and system crashes.

The advantages of Rust mean that other big tech companies, such as Dropbox and Coursera, are already starting to use it internally. While it may be a bit more difficult to master than other beginner languages, Rust programming skills are likely to pay off handsomely, as the language's popularity will only continue to rise in the near future.

It’s Code Time

When deciding which programming language to learn, it’s important not to get caught up in flashy trends and popularity contests. The best programming languages to learn in 2021 are likely the same ones that were best to learn in 2017 and 2018, and that will continue to be true for the next several years as well.

Although the field of computer programming changes rapidly, the languages that we’ve discussed above have a great deal of staying power. By learning one or more of these languages, you’ll be in an excellent position not only for this year but in the years to come.

When beginning your journey into coding, only you can answer the question of the best programming language to learn. Make your selection based on your interests and the type of software development you want to get into. Here is a quick summary of the different possibilities that we’ve discussed:

  • Front-end web development: JavaScript
  • Back-end web development: JavaScript, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby
  • Mobile development: Swift, Java, C#
  • Game development: C++, C#
  • Desktop applications: Java, C++, Python
  • Systems programming: C, Rust

Ready to dig in? Check out our immersive programming courses here!