Klipt

I apologise. Not fifty years ago, then. I think though that my point that it was around long* before Python still stands.

*to within a certain definition of 'long'

DaWei

Well, that's true. Python is a mere babe. Such things are relative, of course. Many members here are young enough for some "new" languages to seem "old".

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Abstraction doesn't make it impossible to write bad code; it makes it possible to write superior code.
Contributor's Corner: Grumpy on C++ Exceptions DaWei on Pointers

Klipt

I only started hearing about Python last year, but it seems it's been around since 1991?

coldDeath

Thats young for a programming language when you all the old ones like COBOL.

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Dietrich

Looks like all computer languages have evolved from previous languages, except the first computer language. So, what was the first computer language?

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I looked it up on the Intergnats!

OpenLoop

I'm gessing machine language with punch cards which was hardware dependant.

DaWei

Machine language was the original way to program. One can't "make" a higher level language that doesn't depend upon an underlying, machine-specific set of signals (embodied in the machine language and micro-code implementations thereof) on which to overlay the abstractions. Direct hardware manipulation via signal sources such as switches comes before punch cards, which are, after all, just one mechanism for "flipping" switches. There is no "first" computer language which is the grandaddy of them all. Each hardware implementation has its own requirements. One may consider boolean algebra, embodied in hardware, to be the "first" language for our current architecture, I suppose.

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Abstraction doesn't make it impossible to write bad code; it makes it possible to write superior code.
Contributor's Corner: Grumpy on C++ Exceptions DaWei on Pointers

Klipt

Or perhaps Turing's Turing Machine language ;-)

DaWei

Perhaps you'd like to elucidate on the fundamental differences?

__________________
Abstraction doesn't make it impossible to write bad code; it makes it possible to write superior code.
Contributor's Corner: Grumpy on C++ Exceptions DaWei on Pointers

Klipt

I may be wrong, but I thought Turing's language was for a very, very primitive state machine that theoretically operated on a strip of infinite memory. Whereas most assembly languages have a more practical set of commands but run on real machines with necessarily finite memory.

Any machine that is Turing complete should be able to emulate any other Turing machine, although more slowly. This is all in theory since no machine with finite memory is a true Turing machine, right?