Here's a nice timeline style review of the history of programming languages that uses videos: http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.h...
Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
11–20 of 25 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
#12The Design and Evolution of C++ [1]
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
#13You've probably already seen this, but the Wikipedia article on the subject isn't a bad introduction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag...
It gives a great overview of the different generations of programming and the significant languages in each.
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
#14History of Lisp, by J McCarthy:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html
The Evolution of Lisp (Steele and Gabriel):
http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf
The Original 'Lambda Papers' by Guy Steele and Gerald Sussman
http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html
Many papers on the evolution, design, and implementation of Scheme:
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
#15Masterminds of Programming is a good read. It contains of interviews with lots of creators of programming languages. The interviews cover a broad range from history to design to philosophy.
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
#16Peter Grogono: "The Evolution of Programming Languages"
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
#17Andreas Stefik gave a talk titled The Programming Wars[1] at my school -- I thought it was a fascinating overview and the video is available at the link. If you already are pretty familiar with the history of programming languages (I'm not), it might be less interesting for you.
[1]: http://www.cs.washington.edu/events/colloquia/search/details...
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
#18While not a history book, per se, "Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages" [1] is a pretty great read. You can get a ton of historical context from reading what the language designers were thinking when they created their languages.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Masterminds-Programming-Conversations-...
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
#19This resource isn't given out enough. It is a true gem.
I owe 90% of every programming thought that entered my mind to the people that contributed to this:
You're welcome.
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources on the history of programming languages?
#20There's The Evolution of Lisp [1], which talks about the entwined relationship of many of the different dialects of lisp. A History of Haskell [2] The Early History of Smalltalk [3] [1] http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf [2] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/simonpj/papers... [3] http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html
Everything from HOPL II is great. I don't know whether all of it ever got published online, but the book version is totally worth it.
It looks like you have to be an ACM member to access these, but all the papers are online for HOPL II: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=234286
HOPL III is here: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1238844&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&C...
HOPL I is here: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=800025&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CF...
I have the hardcopy versions of I and II that I bought used from Amazon and they're great.