Detritus

Coding languages

Notes on programming languages, markup languages, and other formal languages used in software development, including C, CSS, Forth, Inform, PostScript, Python, Racket, Ruby, Rust, and Uxntal.

Languages in brief

1950s

FORTRAN (1957)

Lisp (1958) is a family of programming languages. The name is derived from ‘list processor’. Its main dialects are Common Lisp and Scheme; other dialects and Lisp-likes include Clojure, Janet, and Racket.

COBOL (1959)

000100* Hello world example
000200 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000300 PROGRAM-ID. hello.
000400 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000500     DISPLAY "Hello, world!".
000600     STOP RUN.

1970s

Forth (1970) is a stack-based, concatenative programming language.

C (1972) is a general-purpose language that’s still widely used today, for better or worse.

Scheme (1975) is one of the main dialects of Lisp.

1980s

PostScript (1982) is a concatenative programming language used in printing.

Common Lisp (1984) is the other main dialect of Lisp.

Tcl (1988)

1990s

Python (1991) is a general-purpose language.

Inform (1993) is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction.

HTML (1993) is the markup language of the web.

JavaScript (1995) is the scripting language of the web.

Racket (1995) is a general-purpose language based on Scheme, designed to support building new programming languages.

Ruby (1995) is a general-purpose language (currently my go-to language).

CSS (1996) is a style sheet language, used to define the presentation of pages on the web.

XML (1996)

2000s

JSON (2001)

Clojure (2007)

Liquid (2008) is a template language developed in Ruby by Shopify, used in Jekyll.

2010s

Rust (2010) is a high-level language that emphasises speed and safety.

Janet (2019) is a Lisp-like language.

2020s

Uxntal (2021) is the programming language of the Uxn virtual machine.