Talk:Timeline of programming languages: Difference between revisions

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{{WikiProject Computing|class=List|importance=NA}}

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==Notes==

Copied from [[:Programming language/Timeline|Programming language/Timeline]] which is now

redirected. -- [[User:Buz Cory|Buz Cory]].

----

Changed language links to be uniformly "X programming

language" which is <i>supposed</i> the standard name for a

programming language page. See [[:disambiguating|disambiguating]]

Some links now need fixing. For instance, the page

[[:C language|C language]] needs renaming to [[C (programming language)|C programming language]].

<i>Fix the destinations, not the pointers to them</i>.

-- [[User:Buz Cory|Buz Cory]]

----

Some things are here that don't belong here.

Notably Compilers (MicroSoft C), GUIs (Microsoft Windows)

and OSen (CP/M, Linux).

Where a particular compiler <i>extends</i> the language

(Such as the Borland Pascal compilers did), it should be

here.

Where it is a pretty standard implementation, it does not.

I will be removing things that seem inappropriate.

-- [[User:Buz Cory|Buz Cory]]

===Analytical engine===

The analytical engine shouldn't be on this list either, I don't think. It was a computational machine, but it did not run on a pgoramming language, rather on punchcards. Also the machine wasn't never tested until 1991. [[User:Subversive|Subversive]] 07:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

While it's true that the Analytical Engine was a computer rather than a programming language, it did have a machine language which is what Ada Lovelace used to write her program. As for the punchcards, I fail to see your point. All computer programs had to be punched onto paper tape or punch cards until the mid-60s. In fact when I first learned to program in the mid-70s I was still using punch cards for my FORTRAN code. Each punch card had one language statement punched into it. This was just as true for the Analytical Engine as it was for the CDC 6600 which I last fed punched cards to. -- [[User:Derek Ross|Derek Ross]] | [[User talk:Derek Ross | Talk]] 04:58, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

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Am making a second section for items where the date is

unknown or questionable.

-- [[User:Buz Cory|Buz Cory]]

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I see you moved the legend back to the bottom of the page, and that's fine, but

I think the link back to the [[:programming language|programming language]] page should have been kept.

--[[User:Hornlo|loh]]

:----

:As a matter of fact, I was forced to reformat some (select/paste from NS6 to my editor lost the leading spaces) and so put a new legend at the top. You're right about the [[:programming language|programming language]] link, it is now at the top. I only left the old legend at the bottom because I thought someone might want to make something of it. --[[User:Buz Cory|Buz Cory]]

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I agree that there is far too many versions of the same things. If we are going to include all languages on this time line it will be unusable. Really it should just show the major movements in the programming world.

:----

:Actually, if <i>only</i> languages are mentioned, there are several hundred, probably (including all variations). Not an unworkable number. There is a separate hardware timeline page, and separate timelines for OSen, and another for Commercial End User Apps might be a good idea.

:Just don't mix them all on one page! --[[User:Buz Cory|Buz Cory]]

----

I think you are out by an order of magnitude for the number of languages. Now I don't dispute each of these languages deserve a page on the wikipedia, but by having a time line consisting of x000 languages is not really going to convery much useful info.

What I may get around to is for the Lisp family, just show LISP, Common-Lisp, and Scheme in the main time-line but ALSO have a LISP-time-line.

Other candidates would be FORTRAN-like, C-like, dBase-like, Pascal-like languages etc.

Any views on this approach?

:----

:If you are right on numbers, your approach is probably better. For the moment, I think this page, as it is, is probably best. If/when it gets too big, we can always split it. --[[User:Buz Cory|Buz Cory]]

----

I noticed that some entries here are at variance with the corresponding ones at [[:History of computing|History of computing]]. I have no way of deciding these, but I think they should be mentioned and eventually, we should try to resolve these. --AxelBoldt

Language Programming Timeline Computing History

=============================================================

FORTRAN 59 54-57

LISP 59 58-60

Algol 58 60

APL 62 61

COBOL 60 59-61

Turbo Pascal 83 84

Ada 83 79

Lisp: as explained in [[:LISP_programming_language|LISP_programming_language]], McCarthy claims to have invented it in 1958, he makes this claim in his 1960 paper. It is doubtful that any implementation actually existed at the time (but that is true of many languages). --[[User:drj|drj]]

What date do we use in the Programming language timeline: the date of first implementation or of first description? --AxelBoldt

Well, I would say first implementation or first description. There are plenty of languages in which the implementation came first (perl, python, C) and plenty of languages in which the description came first (Lisp, Algol?, CPL, intercal). Reading the papers that the creators of these languages wrote one gets the impression that if the implementation came first then that was when the language was created and if the description came first then that was when the language was created. Which all seems pretty sensible to me.

Languages that evolve from others, for example B to NB to C, are more problematic because there was probably a continuous series of compilers that grew away from language and towards another. Even once the bootstrapping stage is reached.

[[Intercal]] is an interesting case as well because the language existed for 8 years before anyone wrote an implementation of it. Similarly it is not clear to me whether [[CPL]] ever had an implementation. In what sense are these computer programming languages? The facts seem to indicate that computer programming languages are more uses than the mere programming of computers, they can be used to express ideas between programmers or mathematicians for example (indeed, [[:programs are speech|programs are speech]]!), so it isn't even necessary to have an implementation to be called a computer programming language. That was a bit more than I intended to say really. --[[User:drj|drj]]

:Even when a language hasn't been implemented it may still be very influential. CPL led to BCPL which led to B which led to C which led to C++, therefore CPL is well worth recording. CPL may well have been implemented in the early 1970s as a student project but it doesn't really matter. The ISWIM language has ''never'' been implemented as far as I know, yet the modern functional languages such as ML, Haskell, Miranda, etc. owe a lot to it, so again it is well worth describing. -- [[User:Derek Ross|Derek Ross]]

[[RPG programming language|RPG]] is missing in the timeline!

[[PHP]] ?

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C++ and C with Classes were in "unknown or questionable dates" but need not to since Stroustrup describes the years pretty accurately on his home pages. So I moved them to the normal timeline.

----

Hard to believe that 1975 Altair has had [[Steve Allen]] as a co-author since the first

iteration of this article. (BASIC would make a boring talk-show) [[User:Dmsar|Dmsar]] 21:31 23 Jul 2003 (UTC)

----

Java definitely has predecessors. Its line of descent is Algol > BCPL > C > C++

You only need to look at its syntax to see that. Why remove C++ ? -- [[User:Derek Ross|Derek Ross]] 17:33, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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The year headings ("pre 1950s", "1950s", "1960s",...) shouldn't have colspan="3" when there are now 4 columns. For forward compatibiliy, make it colspan="0", ie span all columns. (It's in the W3C standard: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/tables.html#adef-colspan )

----

FORTRAN IV is listed as originating both in 1962 and 1966.

I wasn't around back then so can not claim to be an expert,

but all my information suggests 1962. Perhaps the entry

in 1966 was meant to be FORTRAN 66? Am new at wikipedia

and will attempt to update it if I don't hear back.

Here's a reference which supports my claim re changing

it to say FORTRAN 66 instead of FORTRAN IV in 1966:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/languages/fortran/ch1-1.html

[[User:JMCorey|JMCorey]] 22:59, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

==Lambda calculus==

I have removed the lambda calculus from the list.

The [[lambda calculus]] as originally defined and used by Church was not a programming language. It was a notation for clarifying the semantics of free and bound variables. Church's interesting (and surprising) result was that this very simple system can support full arithmetic. It was [[John McCarthy (computer scientist)|John McCarthy]] who took the lambda notation and used it for anonymous functions in Lisp, though he did ''not'' actually exploit (or understand!) its full power, which was only done later by Sussman and Steele. If the lambda calculus is going to be in here, then all sorts of other mathematical systems should be, too, including: [[combinatory logic]], [[finite state automata]], [[regular expression]]s, and even [[first-order logic]] and&mdash;why not?&mdash;the conventional mathematical notation of functions and operators! All of these have been used as bases for programming languages. --[[User:Macrakis|Macrakis]] 7 July 2005 13:58 (UTC)

==PHP==

Our [[PHP]] page includes a start date of 1994, and an author of [[Rasmus Lerdorf]], rather than PHP3/1997/unknown as listed in this timeline. Any idea why? [[User:Ojw|Ojw]] 13:23, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

:I believe the [[PHP]] page is right. But PHP 3 is a rewrite, in 1997, I have added author. [[User:Splang|Splang]] 07:06, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

== Inclusion of languages ==

I think Fortran 2003 should be included, because it shows how one of the oldest languages is still being developed and in active use. --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 13:40, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

That's true. This timeline does have a place for minor languages which were very influential or which formed part of the ancestry of major ones: hence Cowsel, ISWIM, and CPL. It also has a place for current development of major languages. But that doesn't mean that it should include all the minor languages ever invented. To do so would lead to a forest/trees problem. -- [[User:Derek Ross|Derek Ross]] | [[User talk:Derek Ross | Talk]] 05:30, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

: Could you add Fortran back to the list, please. I don't want to get banned for a 3RR. --[[User:R.Koot|R.Koot]] 13:59, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

== Legend ==

Line 128 ⟶ 7:

I've replaced the asterisks in the table with "none (unique language)" to match what the key was saying - would this still make sense if it just said "none"? "( Entry ) means a non-universal programming language" didn't seem to refer to anything, as none of the entry titles are in parentheses, so I removed the legend entirely. --[[User:McGeddon|McGeddon]] ([[User talk:McGeddon|talk]]) 10:40, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

==About Chrome==

Apparently, this is more a compiler than a programming language. I request advices about that. [[User:Splang|Splang]]

== Object-C in 1983 not 1982 ==

It seems that Object-C was released in 1983:

http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/languageposter_0504.html

== Fortress ==

Other quite important langauges: Fortress (new Fortran + Java for scientific calculations), Maude (logical and functional programing), Sather and pSather (pure object oriented language and big iterators). <small>—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/149.156.67.102|149.156.67.102]] ([[User talk:149.156.67.102|talk]]) 14:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

== Odd ideas of "historically important programming languages" ==

I am highly skeptical of a number of the languages listed from 1995 up to the present, particularly the really recent ones. Determining the historical importance of a language is difficult when it's only existed for a few years. Furthermore, there are a number of unusual entries which don't seem to fit - [[PIKT]] (1998) is an IDS, not a programming language; [[Cω]] is an extension to C#, not a language of its own; and there are separate entries for each revision of various languages (C, Fortran, and ADA are particular offenders).

What's needed urgently here is a definition of what we mean by "historically important". Right now, there appears to be a problem with new languages getting added indiscriminately, which ruins the utility of the timeline. [[User:Zetawoof|Zetawoof]]_{([[User_talk:Zetawoof|&zeta;]])} 22:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Well there's a few ways that significance could be defined. One reasonable definition of historically significant could be gained by counting how many other languages it has influenced. That would rule out most of the "I just invented it" entries but still allow a place for highly influential but unimplemented languages like ISWIM or CPL. We don't need to set the threshold very high. If it influenced one or two later languages that would be enough. -- [[User:Derek Ross|Derek Ross]] | [[User talk:Derek Ross|Talk]] 18:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

: If it doesn't have its own Wikipedia article, it's probably not notable enough, so you could set the threshold there.--[[User:Fiskjuice|Fiskjuice]] ([[User talk:Fiskjuice|talk]]) 20:34, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

::True -- [[User:Derek Ross|Derek Ross]] | [[User talk:Derek Ross|Talk]]'' 01:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

== Seed7 ==

The article about the [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seed7|Seed7 programming language has been deleted]]. I think we can remove it from this timeline as well. [[User:Ghettoblaster|Ghettoblaster]] ([[User talk:Ghettoblaster|talk]]) 12:39, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

: Done. List is still a mess (I need to get to cleaning it up someday), but marginally less so. [[User:Zetawoof|Zetawoof]]_{([[User_talk:Zetawoof|&zeta;]])} 07:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

: Having an article and being on this list are two different things. There are languages which do not get an article, but still deserve to be mentioned at some places. [[User:Hans Bauer|Hans Bauer]] ([[User talk:Hans Bauer|talk]]) 09:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

:: For languages of historical value which we just haven't written about yet, I can see that. However, this is a language which we ''specifically'' opted to not have an article on a few years ago, because it had very few users and no influence on other programming languages. For these exact reasons, it's also inappropriate in a timeline of programming languages. [[User:Zetawoof|Zetawoof]]_{([[User_talk:Zetawoof|&zeta;]])} 18:33, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

::: I just removed it again. <span style="white-space:nowrap">—[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] <small>([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 2009-10-16 11:09</small></span>

:: I would like to add in response to Hans Bauer that while lists in general may mention languages that do not deserve full articles, this particular list is for ''historically important'' languages, which should assume enough notability for an article. <span style="white-space:nowrap">—[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] <small>([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 2009-10-16 11:20</small></span>

::: [[Seed7]] is listed as [[Wikipedia:Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Computer science, computing, and Internet#Computer_languages|requested article]] for some time now. The article [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seed7|was deleted]] because of missing third-party coverage in 2006. Now Seed7 has third-party coverage. Citation from the article request: Paper from Daniel Zingaro: [http://www.danielzingaro.com/extensible.pdf Modern Extensible Languages] ([http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/sqrl/papers/SQRLreport47.pdf alternate link]) (paragraph about Seed7 at page 16), [http://mensanator.com/mensanator/cycle/ultimate_cycle.htm The Quest for the Ultimate Cycle] explores the 3n+C extension of the Collatz Conjecture with Seed7 programs, [http://www.freshports.org/lang/seed7 A FreeBSD port] / [http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/lang/seed7 see also here] (not maintained by Mr. Mertes). Additionally there is also: [https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/library/ibv/detail.php?nr=1082 Abstract of diploma thesis] (in german, about MASTER, a predecessor of Seed7), [http://seed7.sourceforge.net/thesis/doctorate Doctorate thesis] (in german, about MASTER, a predecessor of Seed7). And finally: [http://seed7.sourceforge.net The Seed7 Homepage]. Maybe the new evidence is sufficient to undelete the Seed7 article. [[User:Hans Bauer|Hans Bauer]] ([[User talk:Hans Bauer|talk]]) 19:17, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

:::: That's good to hear! (Just note that the article's recreation does not mean the entry here should be restored; see the proposed criteria below.) <span style="white-space:nowrap">—[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] <small>([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 2009-11-18 02:31</small></span>

::::: There are many languages in this list, which are so new that they can hardly be classified as ''historically important''. But I still consider all this languages important and they should be listed. Time flows by and [[Seed7]] now has an article and it is described in a book with: "Seed7 supports the introduction of new syntax and their semantics into the language and it allows new language constructs to be defined using the Seed7 language itself" (reference: Abrial, Jean-Raymond and Glässer, Uwe, "Rigorous Methods for Software Construction and Analysis", ISBN 978-3-642-11446-5, Springer, 2010, page 166). Because of this syntactic and semantic extendability I consider it ''pioneering''. The situation has changed and therefore I will add Seed7 back to the list. [[User:Hans Bauer|Hans Bauer]] ([[User talk:Hans Bauer|talk]]) 11:12, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

== legend?? ==

what do the 2 legends mean? especialy the first one. the 2rd one maybe means that "*" in 1st column means a unique language (no direct predecessor). It isnot necessary that "<year>" appears here. in 1st legend, "(entry)" the bracket in the "name" column? who can help me? <small><span class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Xujianguo|Xujianguo]] ([[User talk:Xujianguo|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Xujianguo|contribs]]) 04:02, 27 May 2009 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

: I agree, I don't see the logic behind the legends. [[User:Mahjongg|Mahjongg]] ([[User talk:Mahjongg|talk]]) 16:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

== Definition of historic importance ==

In order to make this article more useful, and apropos the above discussion, i'd like to propose some objective inclusion guidelines. Comments and improvements are most welcome; it would be great if we could settle on a consensus version of this to put at the top of this talk page or somewhere.

;Criteria

:* At minimum, entries should have an article that explains the language's historic importance. (Stubs or redlinks are acceptable as long as there is no doubt that an appropriate article could be written.)

:* In addition, entries should be at least one of:

:*# '''Pioneering'''

:*#: Languages that innovated significant ideas, concepts, or paradigms (even if they were not otherwise influential or widely used).

:*#: The status of "significant" is somewhat subjective, but it should be reasonably widely accepted as such by neutral third parties: it's not enough for a language's authors to think it significant.

:*#: Examples: [[Plankalkül]], [[ALGOL]], [[Information Processing Language|IPL]], [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]], [[Forth (programming language)|Forth]], [[Simula]], [[Prolog]]

:*# '''Influential'''

:*#: Languages that inspired other historically important languages (even if they were not otherwise pioneering or widely used).

:*#: A minor language being the predecessor of several other minor languages is probably not important unless one of those descendants become historically important.

:*#: Examples: [[Combined Programming Language|CPL]]/[[BCPL]]/[[B (programming language)|B]], [[ISWIM]], [[Scheme (programming language)|Scheme]], [[ABC (programming language)|ABC]]

:*# '''Widely used'''

:*#: Languages that found particularly widespread usage (even if they were not otherwise pioneering or influential).

:*#: One rule of thumb is any "''x'' language" that's also an "''x'' industry".

:*#: Examples: [[COBOL]], [[C++]], [[Java (programming language)|Java]], [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]], [[PHP]], [[JavaScript]]

<span style="white-space:nowrap">—[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] <small>([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 2009-10-20 08:28</small></span>

Following the above, i'd like to propose a new column to the list that very briefly summarizes why the language is on the list, under a heading of "Significance" or similar. A sentence fragment from the language's article should suffice; for example, [[Plankalkül]] was the "First high-level non-von Neumann programming language". <span style="white-space:nowrap">—[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] <small>([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 2009-10-23 00:44</small></span>

:Having seen similar criteria implemented for other articles in the past, and having seen disastrous results, I'm going to offer my $0.02 here.<br />Red link exclusion has become a rather serious problem. There are '''many''' otherwise well meaning editors who bulk remove "red links" from articles with the notion of ''"if it doesn't yet have an article it isn't notable"''. (I can cite specifics but it might offend a few people.) This is a logical fallacy in that often red links simply signify things that people have not yet written about. In the case of this specific article, the current red links all seem to be topics that really should be written about but are mostly older or historic languages that aren't getting too much attention right now.<br />As you mention above, significance is subjective; I'd actually consider it to be highly subjective. This isn't a ''"timeline of '''historic''' programming languages"'' so trying to artificially limit inclusion based on pioneering, influential, and widely used doesn't sound like a good idea to me.<br />Perhaps a better way (assuming this article has actually had a problem with inclusion, although I ''personally'' don't see a problem here) would be to simply limit inclusion to programming languages that have preexisting articles '''or''' would otherwise meet the notability guideline appropriate to this genre of articles should an article about the language be written?<br />On a strictly editorial note, is there a reason to have so much bold text in this article? I find it seems to distract from the rest of the content. It also seems like the ''Predecessor(s)'' column should be the rightmost column and not the leftmost column.<br />--[[User:Tothwolf|Tothwolf]] ([[User talk:Tothwolf|talk]]) 09:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

:: Hmm? This is ''exactly'' a "timeline of '''historically important''' programming languages", as the first line of this article states (and its content confirms, and the discussion above elaborates): its very usefulness depends on it. I'm not trying to change the selection criteria, i'm just describing it (as the stand-alone list guideline [[Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Lead and selection criteria|recommends]]).

:: Regarding "red link exclusion", nobody has suggested it: the proposal above specifically points out that redlinks are okay. (If you're concerned about the precedent of Seed7 [[#Seed7|above]], the entry was removed because it was non-notable, ''not'' because it was a redlink.) <span style="white-space:nowrap">—[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] <small>([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 2009-10-23 16:56</small></span>

:::No, I wasn't thinking of Seed7. I've seen a number of articles completely gutted of red links by editors using the reasoning I mentioned above.<br />The article is named ''Timeline of programming languages'' and the lead section ''used'' to say ''"This is a chronological list of programming languages."'' and has been reworded numerous times up to the point where it is now. People are going to continue to add entries with the current lead. Something like what was in the lead in 2005 [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Timeline_of_programming_languages&oldid=28388876] (except using a hatnote) might limit inclusion more than the current lead. Truth is, there is little, if any reason to limit a properly structured ''timeline'' article to only "historical" programming languages. Heck, I just now noticed how syntactically malformed the current wikitable code and section links are... --[[User:Tothwolf|Tothwolf]] ([[User talk:Tothwolf|talk]]) 18:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

== Concept versus implementation ==

At the moment, a number of languages have separate entries, for "concept" and "implementation": <blockquote>[[Fortran]], [[Information Processing Language|IPL]], [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]], [[COMIT]], [[COBOL]], [[TRAC (programming language)|TRAC]], [[APL (programming language)|APL]], [[Simula]], [[ALGOL]], [[PL/I]], [[Forth (programming language)|Forth]], [[Icon (programming language)|Icon]], [[Self (programming language)|Self]]</blockquote>

While this is not necessarily a bad idea, i think it ends up cluttering the already-sprawling list without adding much extra value.

'''Proposal''': Merge the "(implementation)" entries into their corresponding "(concept)" entry (excluding [[Plankalkül]] and [[ISWIM]], which should keep their qualifier), extending their origin year range as necessary.

<span style="white-space:nowrap">—[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] <small>([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 2009-10-20 17:37</small></span>

== Versions and variants ==

In addition to the concept versus implementation entries (see above), some languages have multiple entries for different versions or variants of them, which is probably overkill: it should be enough to list only the first or most prominent member of a closely associated line or group (unless more than one member can be argued to be separately historically important). Here's a quick, crude listing of entries that link to the same article, or otherwise appear closely related:

* [[ALGOL]]: ALGOL 58, ALGOL 60, [[ALGOL 68]], [[ALGOL W]]

* [[Autocode]]: Mark I Autocode

* [[BASIC]]: [[Altair BASIC]], [[CBASIC]], [[GFA BASIC]], [[GW-BASIC]], [[MAI Basic Four|BASIC FOUR]], [[PowerBASIC]], [[QuickBASIC]], [[STOS BASIC]], [[True BASIC]], [[Turbo Basic]]

* [[C++]]: C with classes, Standard C++

* [[COWSEL]]: POP-1

* [[Common Lisp]]: ANSI Common Lisp

* [[Distributed Application Specification Language]]: DASL (AUS), DASL (BOS)

* [[ECMAScript]]: LiveScript, [[JavaScript]]

* [[Erlang (programming language)|Erlang]]: Open Source Erlang

* [[Forth (programming language)|Forth]]: ANS FORTH

* [[Fortran]]: FORTRAN "I", FORTRAN II, FORTRAN IV, FORTRAN 66

* [[Information Processing Language|IPL]]: IPL II, IPL V

* [[JOSS]]: JOSS I, JOSS II

* [[MUMPS]]: Standard MUMPS

* [[Modula]]: Modula-2, Modula-3

* [[Oberon (programming language)|Oberon]]: Object Oberon, Oberon-2, Oberon-07

* [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]]: [[Object Pascal]], [[Turbo Pascal]], [[Embarcadero Delphi]], [[Component Pascal]]

* [[REXX]]: NetRexx, Object REXX

* [[SNOBOL]]: SNOBOL3, SNOBOL4

* [[Smalltalk]]: Smalltalk-76, [[Squeak]]

* [[Speakeasy (computational environment)|Speakeasy]]: Speakeasy-2, Speakeasy-3, Speakeasy-IV

* [[ML (programming language)]]: [[Standard ML]], [[F Sharp (programming language)]]

* [[Visual Basic]]: [[Visual Basic .NET]]

Many of these can probably be merged; any comments on which ones shouldn't be?

<span style="white-space:nowrap">—[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] <small>([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 2009-10-20 22:04</small></span>

:: Don't be led astray by similar naming: Visual BASIC.NET has far more in common with C# than with Visual BASIC, so it would be better merged with the former than the latter. Algol60 and Algol68 are actually pretty different as well. Also the BASIC article was split from the various implementations on the basis that it was too large. It would not be a good idea to merge them all back together. -- [[User:Derek Ross|Derek Ross]] | [[User talk:Derek Ross|Talk]]'' 00:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

:: I agree, don't be led astray by names. e.g. Component Pascal is actually a superset of Oberon-2; merging Modula-2 and Modula-3, or (less so) Oberon with Oberon-2 would make as much sense as merging C with C++ etc. [[User:Chris Burrows|Chris Burrows]] ([[User talk:Chris Burrows|talk]]) 05:39, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

::: Right. I did not suggest merging all of these: it's just a semi-automatic list of related entries as a starting and reference point. It's as important to know why some similar-looking entries warrant separate inclusion as it is to know why some do not. (In case there was confusion, i ''definitely'' did not suggest merging any articles, just entries here.)

::: Regarding the incarnations of BASIC, i was not talking about merging the articles themselves (which is obviously a bad idea), but about removing entries from this list, which is definitely not the place for every dialect and implementation. (Interested users can find those in the [[BASIC]] article, not here.)

::: Looking through the list, the candidates with most historic significance seem to be:

:::* [[BASIC]] itself, of course ([[Dartmouth BASIC]])

:::* [[Altair BASIC]], for being Microsoft's first product, and the subject of Bill Gates' historic [[Open Letter to Hobbyists]]

::: The others can probably go, unless one of them also has clear and independent historic significance. (Any suggestions?)

::: Regarding VB and VB.NET, the differing implementations do not matter much; they are still essentially releases of the same language, with the same (shared) historic significance. An entry for the genesis of Visual Basic should be sufficient; interested users can find all the different implementations and releases of the language through the article.

::: Thanks for the note about Component Pascal's lineage. I can't tell from the article what kind of historical significance it has, though; do you know?

:::: It is an extension of Oberon-02 primarily suited to the implementation of Component Frameworks - hence its name. It was one of the original seven languages selected by Microsoft for implementation on its .NET framework.[[User:Chris Burrows|Chris Burrows]] ([[User talk:Chris Burrows|talk]]) 00:53, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

::: The Modulas seem to be well-motivated:

:::* [[Modula-3]] for its influence in research circles and in the designs of languages like Python, Java, and C#

:::* [[Modula-2]] for its influence in Modula-3, the Oberon family, and other languages

:::* [[Modula]] for being the forerunner of the above

::: I'm also not sure how to describe the Oberon family, but they seem to continue the line of Wirthian innovation; it would be great if someone more familiar with them could give a summary of what makes each of them significant. (Thanks for the response so far!) <span style="white-space:nowrap">—[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] <small>([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 2009-10-23 15:45</small></span>

:::: Within a couple of years of the appearance of Oberon the additional O-O concepts researched in Object Oberon were added to it to form Oberon-2. It is suitable for general-purpose systems and application development. Oberon-07 also evolved directly from Oberon via Oberon-SA (StrongARM) with features that make it particularly suited to the development of reliable software on resource-limited systems e.g. real-time embedded control systems using microcontrollers.[[User:Chris Burrows|Chris Burrows]] ([[User talk:Chris Burrows|talk]]) 00:53, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

::::Thanks for the clarification. That seems reasonable. -- [[User:Derek Ross|Derek Ross]] | [[User talk:Derek Ross|Talk]]'' 15:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

:::::Altair BASIC is certainly historical, but the criterion for deciding whether something is a dialect or a distinct language isn't based on historicity. Altair BASIC looks like a very basic subset of Dartmouth BASIC. The BASIC entries in the list seem to over-represent Microsoft as well. Why not Coleco ADAM BASIC, or a hundred others? MSX BASIC doesn't seem like a distinct flavor either, it's a dialect/subset. Also, why is there no mention of Visual FORTRAN? Or Visual COBOL (or did I miss it?)? The "visuals" represent a specific historic stage in the evolution of prgramming following the almost universal adoption of GUI operating systems, don't they? Almost all of the comments on the Talk page seem well considered and considerate and I hope mine don't deviate, but I do detect, rightly or wrongly, a little bit of bias at work in the published product.[[User:Hypatea|Hypatea]] ([[User talk:Hypatea|talk]]) 19:08, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

== C-10 nomenclature ==

[[Betty Holberton]], "Holberton worked with John Mauchly to develop the C-10 instruction for [[BINAC]] ...". See the second clause which reads as a run-on sentence and a major claim. But if you read [http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/pdf.phtml?id=155 her interview for an oral history], she never claimed to have invented a programming language. Rather, it is an instruction set. Read [http://ftp.arl.mil/mike/comphist/48eniac-coding/ the 1948 Research Report " A Logical Coding System Applied to the ENIAC "] for many other kinds of instructions, such as C-1, C-5 etc.

Holberton does claim [http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/pdf.phtml?id=155 C10 was an assembler instruction set for Univac I] (bought out BINAC) which starts with mnemonic letters S=subtract, T=test. --[[User:Ancheta Wis|Ancheta Wis]] ([[User talk:Ancheta Wis|talk]]) 07:09, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Based on Holberton's interview, it appears that [http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/univac/univac1/UnivacI_RefCard.pdf this is the instruction set] for a UNIVAC. --[[User:Ancheta Wis|Ancheta Wis]] ([[User talk:Ancheta Wis|talk]]) 07:45, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

== OpenCL and CUDA for programming on SIMD processors architecture ==

[[OpenCL]] and [[CUDA]] just appeared recently. They are, probably, the first commercial success among programming languages for SIMD architectures. I think they might be in the list as well. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/82.8.176.196|82.8.176.196]] ([[User talk:82.8.176.196|talk]]) 19:04, 18 September 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

: As far as i understand, OpenCL is more of a programming framework / hardware architecture abstraction layer (analogous to [[OpenMP]]) than a programming language proper, and probably doesn't belong here. --[[User:Piet Delport|Piet Delport]] ([[User talk:Piet Delport|talk]]) 09:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

== Red and Blue ==