What Are The Oldest Programming Languages That Are Still In Use?

A programming language allows people to communicate with computers. It consists of rules that convert string values into machine code or, for visual languages, graphical elements. Although unseen by most, programming languages power modern technology by giving instructions to computers and devices. Choosing the right language is vital in technology development.

Despite revolutionary development, many old programming languages remain relevant today. Currently, more than 4 million engineers/scientists use MATLAB including in such fields as automotive; aerospace; and biomedical. On the other hand, Fortran, which is one of the oldest programming languages, is used by approximately 58% of high-performance computing (HPC) applications especially where accurate simulations are required by the scientific and engineering field at a faster computational time. The developers continue to incorporate these older languages into their projects in 2024, due to the stability and problem-solving abilities of these languages. This article explores the oldest programming languages and their history:

What is a programming language?

A programming language is a structured language used to give a computer a series of instructions that generate different outputs. These languages are used to write programmes that manage how machines operate and represent algorithms. Typically, programming languages include commands that allow a computer to complete tasks like performing calculations or showing text on a display.

History of Programming Languages

The history of a programming language is actually very important now that we already know what a programming language is. Computer programming languages are said to have been developed in the mid of the twentieth century. Konrad Zuse produced the first high-level 1st programming language in the 1940s known as Plankalkül, but it was actualised in 2000. FORTRAN was the first practical language which was in fact developed by John Backus in the 1950s. Since then missions have emerged and progressed fast while programming languages stepped up to ever-changing requirements of current computing platforms.

Top 10 Oldest Languages in the World

We have listed the top 10 oldest programming languages chronologically that are still widely used in 2024 and worth learning:

Fortran (1957)

FORTRAN or Fortran is currently the oldest language still in use in the digital sphere of the world. Developed by a team at IBM with leader John W. Backus, it is an assembly language which was released in 1957 for computation mainframe computer systems. Fortran changed the way programmers worked and is still in use to this day primarily in scientific and engineering computation. 

Lisp (1958)

Lisp, designed by John McCarthy in 1958, is the second oldest high level language existing today. As one of the programming languages that is still used today for AI programming, Lisp came with new features such as tree data structures, and automatic storage management.

SQL (1974)

SQL or structured query language was developed in 1974 by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce at IBM. It is used today for analysing and managing relational databases. It is known for its role as the de facto way of accessing databases.

COBOL (1959)

COBOL, or Common Business Oriented Language was developed by the Conference on Data System Languages in 1959. It has found wide applications in business, finance, and government administrative systems and is still very essential in legacy systems in the three sectors.

Ada (1980s)

Ada, designed by Jean Ichbiah for the U.S. Department of Defence, was introduced in the early 1980s. It is a structured, object-oriented programming language used for large-scale systems, especially in defence and aviation. 

Smalltalk (1972)

Smalltalk, an early object-oriented language, was developed by Alan Kay’s team at Xerox PARC. Released commercially as Smalltalk-80, it played a significant role in educational programming and is still beloved for its simplicity in object-oriented programming.

BASIC (1964)

BASIC was developed in 1964 to make computer programming more accessible, particularly to non-scientific users. It revolutionised computing by allowing widespread public access to programming and was widely adopted in early home computers.

Pascal (1970)

Pascal, introduced by Niklaus Wirth in 1970, was designed to encourage structured programming and good coding practices. It became popular in educational settings and was widely used to teach programming fundamentals.

MATLAB (1984)

MATLAB, released by MathWorks in 1984, is used by millions for numerical computing. Initially a matrix calculator, it has evolved to include advanced features for data visualisation, user interfaces, and integration with other programming languages.

Summing Up

Every current technology relies on programming languages because they are the tools that allow humans to communicate with machines. Due to several important historical contributions and specialisations many of these oldest programming languages are still used and there are even new languages derived from them. Business languages such as Fortran and COBOL are still popular in the industries, and MATLAB is popular in the engineering and science disciplines. Their standing here indicates that these languages remain relevant today as they were, used in the effective solving of difficult issues and the development of technology. Learning about the history and development of programming languages is important in helping explain their relevance to present society’s dynamic world.

FAQs

Q1. Which is the hardest programming language?

A1. C++, Assembly Language, and Esoteric Languages (Malbolge, Whitespace, COW, etc.) are considered among the “hardest” programming languages to learn.

Q2. What is the easiest programming language?

A2. JavaScript, Python, PHP, and Ruby are considered some of the easiest programming languages. These languages have comparatively simpler syntax (commands). They also have built-in functions which make these languages beginner-friendly and easy to learn.

Q3. Who is the father of programming?

A3. Dennis Ritchie, creator of the C programming language and co‑developer of UNIX, is known as the “Father of Modern Programming”. Charles Babbage is known as the “father of the computer” for designing the Analytical Engine, and Ada Lovelace is celebrated as the “mother of programming” for writing the first published algorithm for it in 1843.

Q4. What is the mother of programming language?

A4. The C language is known as the “mother of programming languages because most compilers, JVMs (Java Virtual Machines), kernels, etc, are coded in the C language. Additionally, many other programming languages, such as C++ and Java, use the syntax of the C language.

Q5. What is the oldest coding language?

A5. FORTRAN is considered the oldest coding language still in use today. It was created by John Backus in 1957. FORTRAN stands for FORmula TRANslation.