A brief history of computer programming language told by a neophyte

Let’s see where to begin they say it all started back in 14000MYA, the BIG BANG — the formation of the universe… fast forward a few billion years, and now we’re here. I’m a total software noob-scrub writing a blog about the history of computer software. Transitioning into the tech space can feel daunting in the current age of tech FAANG this FAANG that…(Facebook, Apple, Alphabet, Netflix & Google) React, C##, python, java. The list goes on forever. I’m about to start telling people I only code in CSS! You may be thinking what I’m thinking; “what the hell is all this”. What actually is programming, a binary, a bit, ELECTRICITY, don’t even say the word algorithm, you can thank Al-Khwarizmi for that one?

Where does it all come from? Where did it all begin, this computer stuff? Now, I must warn you this will not be the most technical historic analysis on the many fields of formal semantics encompassing the relation between computation and the underlying mathematical structures from fields such as logic, set theory, type theory, etc — aforementioned, totally new to this computer stuff.

My intention here is to jump into a brief journey through the evolution of what we now consider a modern programming language. Ada Lovelace, regarded by some as the ‘first programmer’ she is known for translating an analytical engine by an Italian engineer, Luigi Menabrea, basically, she thought that an engine ‘’might act upon other things besides number… the “engine” might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent’, sounds like a compiler to me! Her work pushed the understanding of what a computer’s potential could be by the transition from calculating something to computing a thing.

The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. Ada Lovelace -1843

What I’m picking up is that Charles Babbage’s “difference” engine was only able to execute calculations by updating gears for each computation,1822 things were still very “physical”. Eventually “physical motion” was eclipsed by the first electrical signals when the US gov built the ENIAC in 1942 (aka American taxpayer’s, holler!) probably looked similar to the wires lying behind your grandparent’s entertainment systems. Revolutionary, absolutely- yet tedious.

With all that said, I do want to introduce the word enablement: the act of giving someone the authority or means to do something, from here on out this is truly the underlying process from which evolutions lead to revolutions that emerged in the technology space. The implementation of all these new systems; leads to reinventing the space many times over, each iteration yielding exponential results.

Now that’s out of the way let’s continue, actually ran out of time, TBC fam…