What Language Started It All?

John Backus

Behind any command of a programming language, there is code for it underneath. I was
working on a project for my programming class one night and the question suddenly hit me. Who created the first programming language and what was it like compared to modern day code?

FORTRAN was the world's first high level programming language and was developed at the International Business Machine Corporation (IBM) by a team led by John Backus, an American computer scientist. The language was released in 1957 and surprisingly, is still used today for large scale numerical calculations in science and engineering.

The initial release of FORTRAN contained 32 statements, examples are:
- if
- go to
- do
- write
- print
- continue
The six example statements listed above are still used in modern day languages such as Python, Java, and C++ and just shows how advanced FORTRAN was for its time.

Before the development of disk files, text editors and terminals, programs were often entered on punch card using a keypunch keyboard. A punch card with code would look something like this:

One punch card

Looking at the card closely, we can see there are nine rows and eighty columns of numbers. A keypunch keyboard would punch holes in specific places based on the code needed. Compared to a terminal or text editor, the card looks extremely confusing so in order to enhance readability, the columns were divided into four sections:
- 1 to 5 were used to determine command statements such as the ones listed above
- 6 was a continuation field. If a character other than a blank or zero was punched in, this caused the card to be taken as a part of another card. (Multiple cards can be used for one program)
- 7 to 72 were used for statements or the body of your code in today's era
- 73 to 80 were ignored since, at the time, the IBM could only read 72 columns. Since these columns were ignored, programmers could write on them in order to organize the cards if many were used.
When the punch cards were finally finished, they would be fed into a card reader for the computer to compile and run.

 Looking back, it seems like the only main difference between FORTRAN and modern day languages were the speed at which code could be read and functionality. Compared to a text editor, which can compile code in an near instant, the punch card method could take hours to create if huge calculations were need to be done. The cards would then have to be fed individually into the reader which could also take some time. FORTRAN was also mainly used for calculations, however, programming today takes on many other fields such as video game design and web development. Obviously, many changes were implement to commands as well as new ones added, but it shows how far computer science has come while still incorporating its original DNA.