Computers need programming languages to function. That’s just a simple fact of life. However, these languages didn’t just spring up out of nowhere. They were developed by people for explicit purposes.

For 50 years, computer programmers have been writing code. New technologies continue to emerge, develop, and mature at a rapid pace. Now there are more than 2,500 documented programming languages!

Figured this might be the best place to ask. I'm curious if there's any good books that give some detail on how and/or why some programming languages evolved the way they did, especially during the ...

This video is part of Electronic Design's 70th Anniversary series. This is a bit like Mel Brooks History of the World, Part I for programmers. I've been writing a number of articles and recording ...

I was entering the miseries of seventh grade in the fall of 1980 when a friend dragged me into a dimly lit second-floor room. The school had recently installed a newfangled Commodore PET computer, a ...

In one form or another, C has influenced the shape of almost every programming language developed since the 1980s. Some languages like C++, C#, and objective C are intended to be direct successors to ...

Knowing how to program a computer is good for you, and it’s a shame more people don’t learn to do it. For years now, that’s been a hugely popular stance. It’s led to educational initiatives as ...

This question originally appeared on Quora: What is it like to have been programming for the past fifty years? Answer by Bob Frankston, Programming and creating ...