6 ms·

Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?

75 points by groth 11y ago

I liked Erik Levenez's giant poster: http://www.levenez.com/lang/ I am looking for anything of that sort -- books, posters, newspaper articles, well-written blog posts. Thanks!

informatimago 11y ago
A big graph of the genealogy of programming languages: http://www.levenez.com/lang/ http://www.levenez.com/lang/
EdwardCoffin 11y ago
There's The Evolution of Lisp [1], which talks about the entwined relationship of many of the different dialects of lisp. A History of Haskell [2] The Early History of Smalltalk [3] [1] http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf [2] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers/history-of-haskell/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers... [3] http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html
- jsnell 11y ago
  Everything from HOPL II is great. I don't know whether all of it ever got published online, but the book version is totally worth it.
  - jcurbo 11y ago
    It looks like you have to be an ACM member to access these, but all the papers are online for HOPL II: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=234286 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=234286 HOPL III is here: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1238844&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=530866641&CFTOKEN=40970330 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1238844&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&C... HOPL I is here: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=800025&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=530866641&CFTOKEN=40970330 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=800025&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CF... I have the hardcopy versions of I and II that I bought used from Amazon and they're great.
jcr 11y ago
These might be obvious already (and hence redundant), but many computer history museums have sections covering software and programming language history. http://www.computerhistory.org/ http://www.computerhistory.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing Also try the Internet Archive (archive.org). It has a lot of "Programming History" stuff, but finding it can be painful: https://archive.org/details/Kfest2011-PeterNeubaueLogoHistoryAndProgramming https://archive.org/details/Kfest2011-PeterNeubaueLogoHistor...
adwn 11y ago
Not (entirely) serious: A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages by James Iry http://james-iry.blogspot.de/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html http://james-iry.blogspot.de/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mo...
LukeShu 11y ago
There's DMR's article on early C development[0], and the accompanying backups of C compilers from that era[1]. [0]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html [1]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/primevalC.html https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/primevalC.html There are several old primary resources on C's predecessor, B [2]. Structured programming was newish, so it's fun to read these descriptions of newfangled "while" loops. [2]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/bintro.html https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/bintro.html
tikhonj 11y ago
If you really want to get into the details about a specific language, anything from the three "History of Programming Languages"[1] (HOPL) conferences is great. These conferences, convened every ~15 years, have talks by the creators of various seminal programming languages recounting their histories. You can probably find most of the HOPL papers online as well as recordings of talks from the later conferences. There's a lot of material! Personally, I really liked "A History of Haskell: Being Lazy with Class"[2][3], partly because I like Haskell and partly because Simon Peyton Jones is such an engaging speaker. [1]: http://research.ihost.com/hopl/HOPL.html http://research.ihost.com/hopl/HOPL.html [2]: paper: http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/history.pdf http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/histor... [3]: recorded talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bjXGrycMhQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bjXGrycMhQ
- johansch 11y ago
  The book with papers from the second conference (in the 90s) is quite good: http://www.amazon.com/History-Programming-Languages-Thomas-Bergin/dp/0201895021 http://www.amazon.com/History-Programming-Languages-Thomas-B...
JustSomeNobody 11y ago
Search through comp.compiler archives.
- mindcrime 11y ago
  Or the mailing list archives for the many OSS languages. The gcc archives are probably chock full of fascinating stuff. Unfortunately this would only take a researcher back to the 90's or maybe somewhere in the 80's.
lulzury 11y ago
Here's a nice timeline style review of the history of programming languages that uses videos: http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1KcZdsCI3G832QTfx3kCn8zcxi8jH2qFWttB-xuPjYTM&font=Default&lang=en&height=650 http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.h...
sapek 11y ago
The Design and Evolution of C++ [1] [1] http://www.stroustrup.com/dne.html http://www.stroustrup.com/dne.html
justin_ 11y ago
You've probably already seen this, but the Wikipedia article on the subject isn't a bad introduction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag... It gives a great overview of the different generations of programming and the significant languages in each.
keithflower 11y ago
History of Lisp, by J McCarthy: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html The Evolution of Lisp (Steele and Gabriel): http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf The Original 'Lambda Papers' by Guy Steele and Gerald Sussman http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html Many papers on the evolution, design, and implementation of Scheme: http://library.readscheme.org/page8.html http://library.readscheme.org/page8.html
omnibrain 11y ago
Masterminds of Programming is a good read. It contains of interviews with lots of creators of programming languages. The interviews cover a broad range from history to design to philosophy.
ExpiredLink 11y ago
Peter Grogono: "The Evolution of Programming Languages" http://users.encs.concordia.ca/~grogono/CourseNotes/epl.pdf http://users.encs.concordia.ca/~grogono/CourseNotes/epl.pdf
mirithekiwi 11y ago
Andreas Stefik gave a talk titled The Programming Wars[1] at my school -- I thought it was a fascinating overview and the video is available at the link. If you already are pretty familiar with the history of programming languages (I'm not), it might be less interesting for you. [1]: http://www.cs.washington.edu/events/colloquia/search/details?id=2594 http://www.cs.washington.edu/events/colloquia/search/details...
humbledrone 11y ago
While not a history book, per se, "Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages" [1] is a pretty great read. You can get a ton of historical context from reading what the language designers were thinking when they created their languages. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Masterminds-Programming-Conversations-Creators-Languages/dp/0596515170 http://www.amazon.com/Masterminds-Programming-Conversations-...
innguest 11y ago
This resource isn't given out enough. It is a true gem. I owe 90% of every programming thought that entered my mind to the people that contributed to this: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki http://c2.com/cgi/wiki You're welcome.
EdwardCoffin 11y ago
In 2001 MIT had the Dynamic Languages Wizards Series [1], which consisted of three panels of luminaries in the field (videos and participants names on the linked page). A lot of history was discussed in their 5+ hours. They are also on YouTube: Panel on Runtime: Richard Kelsey, David Moon, Tucker Withington, Kim Barrett, Scott McKay [2] Panel on Compilation: David Detlefs, Will Clinger, Martin Rinard, and Mat Hostetter [3] Panel on Language Design: Paul Graham, John Maeda, Jonathan Rees, Guy Steele [4] --- [1] http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dynlangs/wizards-panels.html http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dynlangs/wizards-panels.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LG-RtcSYUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LG-RtcSYUQ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at7viw2KXak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at7viw2KXak [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agw-wlHGi0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agw-wlHGi0E
mindcrime 11y ago
The book The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering might be useful to you. http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software-Engineering/dp/0321903420 http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software-Engi...
DeBraid 11y ago
Bret Victor "The Future of Programming" is wonderful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4
rumcajz 11y ago
It you go beyong ~1955 the documents get pretty scarce. Still it's a fascintating topic to research.

75 points by groth 11y ago

I liked Erik Levenez's giant poster: http://www.levenez.com/lang/ I am looking for anything of that sort -- books, posters, newspaper articles, well-written blog posts. Thanks!

informatimago 11y ago

A big graph of the genealogy of programming languages: http://www.levenez.com/lang/ http://www.levenez.com/lang/

EdwardCoffin 11y ago

There's The Evolution of Lisp [1], which talks about the entwined relationship of many of the different dialects of lisp. A History of Haskell [2] The Early History of Smalltalk [3] [1] http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf [2] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers/history-of-haskell/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers... [3] http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html

jsnell 11y ago
Everything from HOPL II is great. I don't know whether all of it ever got published online, but the book version is totally worth it.
- jcurbo 11y ago
  It looks like you have to be an ACM member to access these, but all the papers are online for HOPL II: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=234286 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=234286 HOPL III is here: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1238844&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=530866641&CFTOKEN=40970330 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1238844&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&C... HOPL I is here: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=800025&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=530866641&CFTOKEN=40970330 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=800025&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CF... I have the hardcopy versions of I and II that I bought used from Amazon and they're great.

jcr 11y ago

These might be obvious already (and hence redundant), but many computer history museums have sections covering software and programming language history. http://www.computerhistory.org/ http://www.computerhistory.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing Also try the Internet Archive (archive.org). It has a lot of "Programming History" stuff, but finding it can be painful: https://archive.org/details/Kfest2011-PeterNeubaueLogoHistoryAndProgramming https://archive.org/details/Kfest2011-PeterNeubaueLogoHistor...

adwn 11y ago

Not (entirely) serious: A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages by James Iry http://james-iry.blogspot.de/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html http://james-iry.blogspot.de/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mo...

LukeShu 11y ago

There's DMR's article on early C development[0], and the accompanying backups of C compilers from that era[1]. [0]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html [1]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/primevalC.html https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/primevalC.html There are several old primary resources on C's predecessor, B [2]. Structured programming was newish, so it's fun to read these descriptions of newfangled "while" loops. [2]: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/bintro.html https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/bintro.html

tikhonj 11y ago

If you really want to get into the details about a specific language, anything from the three "History of Programming Languages"[1] (HOPL) conferences is great. These conferences, convened every ~15 years, have talks by the creators of various seminal programming languages recounting their histories. You can probably find most of the HOPL papers online as well as recordings of talks from the later conferences. There's a lot of material! Personally, I really liked "A History of Haskell: Being Lazy with Class"[2][3], partly because I like Haskell and partly because Simon Peyton Jones is such an engaging speaker. [1]: http://research.ihost.com/hopl/HOPL.html http://research.ihost.com/hopl/HOPL.html [2]: paper: http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/history.pdf http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/histor... [3]: recorded talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bjXGrycMhQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bjXGrycMhQ

johansch 11y ago
The book with papers from the second conference (in the 90s) is quite good: http://www.amazon.com/History-Programming-Languages-Thomas-Bergin/dp/0201895021 http://www.amazon.com/History-Programming-Languages-Thomas-B...

JustSomeNobody 11y ago

Search through comp.compiler archives.

mindcrime 11y ago
Or the mailing list archives for the many OSS languages. The gcc archives are probably chock full of fascinating stuff. Unfortunately this would only take a researcher back to the 90's or maybe somewhere in the 80's.

lulzury 11y ago

Here's a nice timeline style review of the history of programming languages that uses videos: http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1KcZdsCI3G832QTfx3kCn8zcxi8jH2qFWttB-xuPjYTM&font=Default&lang=en&height=650 http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.h...

sapek 11y ago

The Design and Evolution of C++ [1] [1] http://www.stroustrup.com/dne.html http://www.stroustrup.com/dne.html

justin_ 11y ago

You've probably already seen this, but the Wikipedia article on the subject isn't a bad introduction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag... It gives a great overview of the different generations of programming and the significant languages in each.

keithflower 11y ago

History of Lisp, by J McCarthy: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html The Evolution of Lisp (Steele and Gabriel): http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf The Original 'Lambda Papers' by Guy Steele and Gerald Sussman http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html Many papers on the evolution, design, and implementation of Scheme: http://library.readscheme.org/page8.html http://library.readscheme.org/page8.html

omnibrain 11y ago

Masterminds of Programming is a good read. It contains of interviews with lots of creators of programming languages. The interviews cover a broad range from history to design to philosophy.

ExpiredLink 11y ago

Peter Grogono: "The Evolution of Programming Languages" http://users.encs.concordia.ca/~grogono/CourseNotes/epl.pdf http://users.encs.concordia.ca/~grogono/CourseNotes/epl.pdf

mirithekiwi 11y ago

Andreas Stefik gave a talk titled The Programming Wars[1] at my school -- I thought it was a fascinating overview and the video is available at the link. If you already are pretty familiar with the history of programming languages (I'm not), it might be less interesting for you. [1]: http://www.cs.washington.edu/events/colloquia/search/details?id=2594 http://www.cs.washington.edu/events/colloquia/search/details...

humbledrone 11y ago

While not a history book, per se, "Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages" [1] is a pretty great read. You can get a ton of historical context from reading what the language designers were thinking when they created their languages. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Masterminds-Programming-Conversations-Creators-Languages/dp/0596515170 http://www.amazon.com/Masterminds-Programming-Conversations-...

innguest 11y ago

This resource isn't given out enough. It is a true gem. I owe 90% of every programming thought that entered my mind to the people that contributed to this: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki http://c2.com/cgi/wiki You're welcome.

EdwardCoffin 11y ago

In 2001 MIT had the Dynamic Languages Wizards Series [1], which consisted of three panels of luminaries in the field (videos and participants names on the linked page). A lot of history was discussed in their 5+ hours. They are also on YouTube: Panel on Runtime: Richard Kelsey, David Moon, Tucker Withington, Kim Barrett, Scott McKay [2] Panel on Compilation: David Detlefs, Will Clinger, Martin Rinard, and Mat Hostetter [3] Panel on Language Design: Paul Graham, John Maeda, Jonathan Rees, Guy Steele [4] --- [1] http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dynlangs/wizards-panels.html http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/dynlangs/wizards-panels.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LG-RtcSYUQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LG-RtcSYUQ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at7viw2KXak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at7viw2KXak [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agw-wlHGi0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agw-wlHGi0E

mindcrime 11y ago

The book The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering might be useful to you. http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software-Engineering/dp/0321903420 http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software-Engi...

DeBraid 11y ago

Bret Victor "The Future of Programming" is wonderful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4

rumcajz 11y ago

It you go beyong ~1955 the documents get pretty scarce. Still it's a fascintating topic to research.