How exactly does modern computer language come about and why? How do they get their start and who is behind them?
This is a multi-step process:
Theorists like Pointy-head and other professionals are constantly offering new language features. You can read about them in places like the ACM Symposium on the Principles of Programming Languages (POPL), which has been held annually since 1973.
Many of these proposals are actually implemented in some research language ; Some research languages that I personally see as promising include Coq and Agda. Haskell is a former research language that made it great. The research language, which receives 10 users, is often considered its designers. Many research languages never go that far.
From research to deployment, I know two models:
Model A: A talented amateur comes and synthesizes a whole bunch of existing functions, possibly including some new ideas, into a new language. The lover has talent, charisma and, possibly, a killer app. Thus, C, Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl are born.
Model P: A talented professional makes career sacrifices to build and unveil a new language. A professional possesses talent, a deep knowledge of the field and, possibly, a killer application. Thus, Haskell, Lua, ML, Pascal, Scala and the scheme are born.
My definition of a professional is someone who gains knowledge about programming languages, transfers this knowledge and develops new knowledge in programming languages. Unfortunately, this is not the same as developing and introducing new languages, and it is not the same as making implementations that many people can use. This is why most successful programming languages are designed and created by amateurs, not professionals.
There were many interesting research languages that hundreds or even thousands of users had, but still never made it big. Of these, my favorites are probably Icon . I argued elsewhere that no one knows why languages are becoming popular.
Summary: Languages come about because people want to make programming better, and they have new ideas. Languages begin when someone takes a whole bunch of ideas, some new and some proven, and synthesizes them into a single whole. This is a lot of work. The person behind the new language may be a professional in a programming language, but historically most of the languages that are widely used seem to be created by talented lovers.
Norman ramsey
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