Whether you are from IT sector or not, but one question must have popped up into your mind, what is a computer language? Why it was requited? Actually, I am too young to narrate all the past events and founder of computer languages. But, still I feel crucial to write this post. An answer to the question, why computer languages are requires lies in another question i.e. Why do we require English.? Why don't we speak binary language? Well, because binary language is well specified for computers having no common sense. Computer languages consists of instructions and these instructions participate in communication with computers. The computer languages were set in motion when Charles Babbage proposed the first analytical machine. And the major dominating languages are: BCPL led B, B led to C, C evolved into C++ and C++ set the platform for java and in turn C#. The famous hierarchy of computer languages is as follows.
BCPL
BCPL was developed by Martin Richard in 1966. And it is well known to have influenced B. Few have heard about BCPL because nowadays it seems to be vanished. Actually BCPL is successor to CPL programming language. BCPL system library provided I/O support and very simple memory management. BCPL included integers, reals, bit patterns, I/O streams, various kinds of references, and vectors. BCPL strongly influenced B which in turn influenced C.
B
B was developed at bell labs with the efforts from Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie primarily developed for system programming. It included processing of integers, characters and bit strings. Code efficiency of this language was good compared to assembly level languages.
B is also extinct and take over by C.
C
C is a programmer's language. Invented and first implemented by Dennis Ritchie. It shook the computer world because it changes the programming approach. Earlier failures of assembly level languages gave C more popularity. The power of C is its structured principles. C is one of the widely used programming language of all the time. It was believed to be a language of modern age. Because of increasing the complexity in C programs led to invention of C++.
C++
C++ is a response to the increasing complexity of programs in C++. However even with a structured programming once a program reaches certain size its complexity exceeds what a programmer can manage. To solve this problem Bjarne Stroustrup invented this object oriented programming. It is a methodology that organize complex programs through the use of inheritance, encapsulation and polymorphism. It led to use of classes. C++ includes all of C's features, attributes, and benefits. so it is an enhancement to an already highly successful one.
JAVA
JAVA was created by James Gosling, Patrick Naughton, Chris Warth, Ed Frank and Mike Sheridan at Sun Microsystems, Inc. in 1991. The language was initially called 'oak' but was later renamed to 'JAVA' in 1995. It is an architecturally neutral language. It is portable and platform independent language that could be used to produce code that would run on a variety of CPUs under differing environments. Bytecode is JAVA's magic.
C#
Most important example of JAVA's influence is C#. Recently created by microsoft to support the .NET framework. .Net Framework, C# is closely related to JAVA. for example, both share the same general C++ style, support distributed programming and utilize the same object model. There are of course many difference between JAVA and C#, but the overall look and feel of these languages is very similar.
This "cross-pollination" from JAVA to C# is the strongest testimonial to date that java redefined the way we think about and use a computer language
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