Programming Language History

[Paul Lussier]

Jon maddog Hall <maddog at li.org> writes:

> p.lussier at comcast.net said:
>> Lisp, as a language, has been around since 1959, making it the oldest
>> programming language still in common use today.
>
> Fortran was started in 1954, and released in 1957.  Cobol was also
> released in 1959.

Hmm, perhaps I should re-state that as "the oldest programming
language still taught in Computer Science courses."  I have absolutely
no idea whether there are any CS departments still teaching either
Fortran or Cobol, but I know that at least MIT still teaches Lisp (in
the form of scheme).

While Fortran and Cobol are indeed still in widespread use, my
understanding is that it is more a consequence of legacy than of
intention.  And that, where possible, these systems are being replaced
with newer, more modern systems written in contemporary languages
(C/C++, Java, perhaps even python or perl).  I do not get the
impression that people actively and intentionally design systems in
either Fortran or Cobol these days.  I could be wrong, it happened
once before ;)

Whereas, there are people still actively and intentionally designing
systems in Lisp.  Paul Graham is perfect example, he and Bob Morris
wrote ViaWeb entirely in Common Lisp, which was subsequently sold to
Yahoo for $40 million (Yahoo eventually re-wrote the entire thing from
the ground up in C++.  Rumor has it that due to a total lack of
understanding of the language, they were afraid to touch the Lisp :)

> You can argue about the words "common use", but you should not argue
> too loudly in the high performance computing arenas, nor in the
> business circles.

Two areas I know almost nothing about, so, with all due respect for
those areas of computer science, I'll stop arguing ;)

-- 

Seeya,
Paul