Changes

Early high-level programming languages were often intended for use in a particular problem domain:

Early high-level programming languages were often intended for use in a particular problem domain:

:COBOL for business purposes,

:[[COBOL]] for business purposes,

:Fortran and Algol 60 for scientific calculations,

:[[Fortran]] and Algol 60 for scientific calculations,

:BASIC and Pascal for teaching purposes,

:[[BASIC programming language|BASIC]] and [[Pascal programming language|Pascal]] for teaching purposes,

:'''C''' for systems programming (writing operating systems and compilers),

:[[C]] for systems programming (writing operating systems and compilers),

:LISP for list processing and artificial intelligence.

:[[LISP]] for list processing and artificial intelligence.

Successful programming languages evolve over time to become more general-purpose, or form the basis for other languages (e.g. '''C''' -> '''C++'''). The evolution often involves incorporating good features from other languages. The general trend is for languages to become more general-purpose and provide more levels of abstraction. The concepts of structured programming were put on a sound theoretical basis in the early 1970s and these have also influenced the evolution of some programming languages (e.g. Fortran 66 -> Fortran 77). The idea of objects (combining data with the applicable operations) was available in Simula in the mid 1960s, but did not become popular until the advent of C++ in the early 1980s and Java in the mid 1990s; confusingly, Java and C++ have a lot of syntax in common, but the meaning (semantics) may differ drastically for what looks the same when written down.

Successful programming languages evolve over time to become more general-purpose, or form the basis for other languages (e.g. '''C''' -> '''C++'''). The evolution often involves incorporating good features from other languages. The general trend is for languages to become more general-purpose and provide more levels of abstraction. The concepts of structured programming were put on a sound theoretical basis in the early 1970s and these have also influenced the evolution of some programming languages (e.g. Fortran 66 -> Fortran 77). The idea of objects (combining data with the applicable operations) was available in Simula in the mid 1960s, but did not become popular until the advent of [[C++]] in the early 1980s and [[Java]] in the mid 1990s; confusingly, [[Java]] and [[C++]] have a lot of syntax in common, but the meaning (semantics) may differ drastically for what looks the same when written down.

====Declarative programming====

====Declarative programming====