Five Programming Languages That Changed The World

Speaking the right language is important.
It’s easy to forget that computers are binary machines. Everything your MacBook or desktop PC does is governed by a seemingly endless string of zeroes and ones, while smartphones and tablets are also powered by the simple expedient of something being in one of two states.
When we create computer programs, a programming language is used to generate instructions and commands in a language we can understand before everything is converted into Matrix-style machine code. There are five languages that have had a particularly significant impact on the world:
COBOL
The origins of the COmmon Business-Oriented Language date back to the late 1950s when the American Department for Defence wanted to create a programming language for data processing. Like that other great Cold War invention ARPANET (which provided the inspiration for today’s internet), COBOL’s legacy lives on even as its popularity steadily declines. Its verbose and unintuitive code has historically been the preserve of academics and IT experts, although COBOL pioneered many functions that were subsequently adopted by rival languages.
BASIC.
Created five years after COBOL but achieving stardom in the 8-bit home computing heyday of the 1980s, Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code lived up to its title as the beginning of many a programmer’s career. Instructions like DRAW, RUN and GOTO were easy to grasp even for IT rookies, though the likes of INKEY$ and PEEK (governing key presses and memory cell addresses respectively) would remain the domain of professional programmers. Modern languages like PureBasic and VB.net are direct descendants of BASIC, with the latter powering many of the world’s smartphone and tablet apps thanks to the continued support of parent company Microsoft.
Python.
While BASIC offered users an eclectic blend of commonly used words and unintelligible shorthand, Python was created in 1991 with simplicity as its USP. Eschewing the surrealism of the Monty Python TV show it was named after, Python code can be easily read and understood even by amateurs. As a result, it is currently one of the five most popular programming languages in the world. Along with PHP and Perl, Python is often deployed in the open-source LAMP web server stack.
Java.
Not to be confused with the JavaScript language (which is wholly web-based), Java is a programming language used for applications that run on a virtual machine or in a browser. Underpinning everything from Blu-ray disks to supercomputers, this hugely flexible platform was created in 1995 by Sun Microsystems as a Write Once Run Anywhere language. In other words, code compiled in Java should be compatible with any machine or hardware device that has Java support built in. That list includes most smartphones and computers, making Java the world’s most widely-used programming language in 2016.
C.
The only language capable of rivaling Java’s market dominance, C is a long-established language notable for having several variants simultaneously in use. C++ and C# are more complex versions of the parent language, with adherents endlessly arguing over their rival merits online. All branches of C are renowned for their speed and inter-platform compatibility, with examples of deployment including Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird (C++), the Unix OS (C) and Windows Phone (C#).

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