Chapter 2 Flashcards
1
Q
What is the general timeline for programming languages (from oldest to newest)?
A
- Fortran & FLOW-MATIC
- ALGOL
- LISP
- COBOL & APL
- BASIC & PL/I
- Pascal & C
- Prolog
- Scheme
- Smalltalk
- Miranda
- C++
- Perl
- Haskell
- Python
- Java & PHP
- Ruby
- C#
2
Q
What languages broadly influence what other language?
A
- Fortran → ALGOL
- ALGOL → Pascal, C
- Fortran and ALGOL → BASIC
- Fortran, ALGOL, and COBOL → PL/I
- LISP → Scheme
- SNOBOL → awk
- Java and C++ → C#
3
Q
What are some early precursors of programming languages?
A
- Fortran (FORmula TRANslation)
- LISP (LISt Processing)
- ALGOL (ALGOrithmic Language)
- COBOL (Common Object Business Oriented Language)
- APL (AProgramming Language)
- SNOBOL
- SIMULA
- BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)
4
Q
What was the first compiling system?
A
A-0 by Grace Hopper at UNIVAC.
5
Q
Fortran…what were its major additions to programming languages?
A
- first compiled language
- one of the earliest high-level languages
- array processing
- subroutines and functions
- implicit typing
6
Q
Functional programming…why was it created and what language came first?
A
It was created to handle list processing and applications for AI. LISP was the first functional language.
7
Q
Algol…why is it such an important language?
A
- influenced many languages (e.g. C)
- attempted to be a universal language
- major advancements (lots of stuff!):
+ concept of a data type
+ compound statements
+ unlimited length names for identifiers
+ arrays of any dimensions
+ nested selection statements
+ used a BNF (Backus-Naur Form) to describe the grammar
+ block statements
+ pass-by-value and pass-by-name
+ recursion
+ stack-dynamic arrays
8
Q
Cobol…what is its purpose and what did it add to programming languages?
A
- provided a programming language for business, finance, and administrative purposes
- allowed for a data definition section and a computation section
- DEFINE macro
- hierarchical data structures (records)
9
Q
Why is Basic an important language?
A
- popular for microcomputers (small memory)
- easy for beginners to learn
10
Q
What did PL/I get wrong?
A
- was very complex because it tried to include “the best parts“ of popular languages (like Fortran, ALGOL, and COBOL) during the time
- programs were allowed to create concurrently executing subprograms
11
Q
Why was ADA unsuccessful?
A
- most expensive and extensive design effort
- developed for the DoD
- too large
- too complex
12
Q
What was the first OO language?
A
Smalltalk
