Interestingly, C is a fairly recent language: it came out in 1972. It was created alongside UNIX, to serve as its primary programming language. Accordingly, almost all of the Linux kernel is written in C, and most of the baseline programs for Linux (aka GNU) are written in C.
I believe the oldest high-level programming language still in widespread use is FORTRAN (1957), and the second-oldest is Lisp (1958).
FORTRAN is focused on manipulating arrays, and (lord knows why) it's still heavily used in scientific computing. Interestingly, Python has been gaining a lot of ground in science, at least outside high-performance computing.
Lisp is the oldest major functional programming language, and it's still in use mainly because there's a popular Lisp interpreter called Emacs. There are some other GNU projects that use Lisp, but Emacs is the big one.
Interestingly, C is a fairly recent language: it came out in 1972. It was created alongside UNIX, to serve as its primary programming language. Accordingly, almost all of the Linux kernel is written in C, and most of the baseline programs for Linux (aka GNU) are written in C.
I believe the oldest high-level programming language still in widespread use is FORTRAN (1957), and the second-oldest is Lisp (1958).
FORTRAN is focused on manipulating arrays, and (lord knows why) it's still heavily used in scientific computing. Interestingly, Python has been gaining a lot of ground in science, at least outside high-performance computing.
Lisp is the oldest major functional programming language, and it's still in use mainly because there's a popular Lisp interpreter called Emacs. There are some other GNU projects that use Lisp, but Emacs is the big one.
Ooh,Thanks for the insight.