Jan 03, 2020 15:00:00

When did the word 'programming language' first begin to be used?

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Eugene Wallingford, Dean of the Department of Computer Science at Northern Iowa University, discusses the history of the term `` programming language '' commonly used by modern IT professionals. Summarize.

Knowing and Doing: December 2019 Archives
http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2019-12.html#e2019-12-26T13_55_09.htm

One tweet prompted Wallingford to find out when the term 'programming language' was first used. Twitter user Cristina Videira Lopes, who was studying the programming language LISP , noticed that LISP was called a 'programming system' instead of a 'programming language' when hitting old literature. So, Lopes wrote on Twitter, 'Why did programming languages come to be so?'

Hey, CS History Twitter: I just read Iverson's preface of his 1962 book carefully, and suddenly this occurred to me: did he coin the term “programming language”? Was that the first time a programming language was called “programming language”?

— Crista Lopes (@cristalopes) December 22, 2019

Wallingford, who knew the origin of the term programming language, went straight to the past. What was discovered was a paper published in January 1957 by Allen Newell and Cliff Shaw , known as the developers of the program ' Logic Theorist ', called the 'World's First Artificial Intelligence Program' (PDF File) PROGRAMMING THE LOGIC THEORY MACHINE '. In the introduction to this paper, there is an explanation of programming languages, so Wallingford said, 'The purpose of being defined is that at that time the word' programming language 'had not penetrated. I said, 'he said, indicating that this paper was an early example of using the term' programming language '.

However, because the history of computer science is outside of Wallingford's specialty, Wallingford recruited an older 'programming language' history that provided further insight. Matt, a programmer with a deep knowledge of

computer architecture etc., posted on Twitter that `` It is worth noting that computer scientist Arthur Burks referred to 'intermediate programming language' in 1950 '' , Provided information on examples of using a 'programming language' seven years earlier than 'PROGRAMMING THE LOGIC THEORY MACHINE'.

'Intermediate Programming Language' by Arthur Walter Burks (1950) may be of note; cf. 'The Early Development of Programming Languages' by Donald Knuth & Luis Trabb Pardo ( https://t.co/pUTrTF0j3D ), https: // t.co/VCa3KKyiYG , https://t.co/kJjB2Xj6cY .

— Matt (@matt_dz) December 23, 2019

The material (PDF file) presented by Matt, published by researchers at Stanford University in 1976, states on page 26 that `` Berks was in 1950, and later one level above the internal programming language. This is an outline of what is called an 'intermediate programming language'. ' In addition, according to Mr. Wallingford, Burks is 'also in the following year of 1951, program synthesis and has announced an intermediate programming language (An intermediate program language as an aid in program synthesis) as an auxiliary of the' entitled paper That.

According to Wallingford, `` The programming language '' was already commonly used in the manual (PDF file) of FORTRAN , the world's first high-level language created by IBM in 1956. Information '. From this information, Wallingford said, 'It is possible that somebody coined the term 'programming language' between 1951 and 1956. ' Summarizing that it was successful to narrow down the age at which 'programming languages' began to be used.