Programming Language History [was Re: F/OS & the blind ]

[Ben Scott]

On 12/8/05, Bill Freeman <f at ke1g.mv.com> wrote:
>>> Lisp, as a language, has been around since 1959, making it the
>>> oldest programming language still in common use today.
>
> I thought that my copy of McCarthy's lisp book was dated 1957.

  FWIW, when Doug McIlroy spoke recently at DLSLUG, he talked of the
gestation of LISP (since "he was there when it happened").  I got the
impression that FORTRAN was already around at the time, although even
FORTRAN was young back then.  Really, the "Who did it first?" question
tends to be somewhat pointless.  Ideas rarely, if ever, springs into
existence from thin air.  Ideas tend to start in the back of the mind,
and ferment over time.  While FORTRAN was evolving, I'd bet the ideas
behind LISP were too.

-- Ben