Coding Languages

Awk

Awk is an enormously powerful text processing programming language that allows you to extract the data that you need from a file or other source and output it in any format you want. It is an old tool, but still as useful as ever.

ABAP

Advanced Business Application Programming, or ABAP, is one of the two languages that are used to create SAP applications. SAP is one of the biggest enterprise resource planning systems in use today, and so is very important in the business community.

Bootstrap

Bootstrap is a popular front-end development framework that is JavaScript heavy.

Delphi

Delphi is an object-oriented version of the Pascal programming language. It's been around for over 20 years and more popular than ever.

RavenDB

RavenDB is a NoSQL document-oriented database written especially for the .NET framework.

Pascal

Pascal is a language much loved by programming purists. But that doesn't mean it hasn't kept up with the times and isn't still used.

PostScript

PostScript is a specialized programming language used primarily for describing graphics and page layouts. It is incredibly powerful.

Sed

Sed is a powerful text processing tool and simple programming language that allows you to edit text files (or streams) using regular expressions.

NXT-G

The NXT-G programming language was designed to create and control robots using the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robotics kit. It is intended to introduce children to programming and robotics, but a lot of adults use the system too because it's fun and interesting.

Unix Shells

This guides you through the major Unix (GNU/Linux) shells and shows you why you need one and which one you should use.

Object-Oriented Programming

This article provides you a good introduction to object-oriented concepts and then goes on to discuss the most popular object-oriented programming languages.

VRML

Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) was created in the late 1990s as a way of describing virtual worlds. It created a lot of excitement for a time, but never really took off.

Visual Basic

Visual Basic is still one of the most popular languages for use with the Microsoft .NET framework. This article also discusses VBScript, still highly useful for scripting inside applications.

FORTH

Work began on Forth in 1968, and is commonly used on hardware that doesn't have a traditional operating system. It is also widely used to control machinery.

jQuery

jQuery is a JavaScript library that makes writing code much easier and faster.

Java

Java is a high-level language designed to be used by the Java Virtual Machine. It has very few external dependencies, and was intended to be able to run on any physical machine. It is used a lot in network architecture and also in embedded devices, kiosks, and other in situ computing applications

Javascript

JavaScript (which has no actual relation to Java), is a scripting language developed originally for use in web browsers. Because of that, it has a built-in facility for dealing with the Document Object Model, the in-memory representation of the content of a webpage. It is the primary programming language for front-end web development.

D

Just as the C programming language came about because of deficiencies in the B programming language, D was designed to fix C. In particular, D makes C object-oriented. But unlike C++, which did the same thing, D is not backward compatible, and so doesn't contain some of the weaknesses of C++.

LabVIEW

LabVIEW is a graphical programming language especially designed to help scientists and engineers solve the problems they face. It is particularly focused on creating applications that interface with and control hardware.

Lisp

Lisp is one of the earliest high-level programming languages and is still actively use. It is a general-purpose language, but is most associated with work in artificial intelligence. There are a number of popular dialects of it.

Node.js

Node.js is a runtime environment that allows JavaScript to be used to create server-side applications.

OCaml

OCaml is an object-oriented functional computer language. In the tradition of ML, it is used a great deal for writing other programming languages and development frameworks.

C++

Originally "C with Classes," C++ is, in many ways, simply a more advanced successor to C (though the situation is a lot more complicated than that). C++ was developed to add high-level programming paradigms to C, while retaining the low-level hardware-manipulation capabilities. Many of these additions have been added to C over the years, and the languages are more like two dialects of a single language.

PostgresSQL

PostgreSQL is an advanced relational database system — the biggest open-source competitor to MySQL. Although not as popular as MySQL, PostgreSQL is generally more powerful.

PROLOG

Prolog is a logic programming language, designed to do natural language processing.

Pure Data

Pure Data is a unique visual programming language. It was created especially to allow users to create video, audio, and graphic works.

R

R is a free and open-source programming language for statistical analysis and the creation of great looking data visualizations.

Rexx

Rexx is a scripting language written by IBM for its mainframe computers. But it became much more widely used.

S-PLUS

S-PLUS is a commercial version of the powerful programming language S, designed for doing statistical analysis. The GNU project has its own version of S called R. We provide all the resources you need to learn S with an emphasis on S-PLUS.

SMIL

SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) is a tool for people who want to create and distribute presentations. It is especially useful if you want to create presentations that need to be updated from time to time.

SQLite

SQLite is the most popular database system in the world because of its widespread use in smartphone apps. Unlike MySQL, it is not a client/server but an embedded system, making it simple and fast for most applications.

Scala

Scala is a relatively new language — more or less a new and better Java. It's a great language for Java programmers who want to be more efficient, or people just starting out who want to learn a powerful language that won't limit them in the future.

SSI

Server Side Includes (SSI) is a simple language for adding dynamic elements to otherwise static websites. It also allows you to create easy uniformity and maintainability on your site.

Simula

Simula is a very important language historically, as it was the first language to introduce the concepts which became the basis for Object-Oriented Programming.

SGML

Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) is the granddaddy of markup languages and the basis of HTML.

Stata

Stata is a development environment and programming language for solving serious statistical problems. Although it's been around a long time, it is still widely used by a very active community. If you do statistical work, Stata is a great tool to know.

Swift

Swift is a programming language developed by Apple for iOS, OS X, watchOS, tvOS, and Linux development. It is the language of the future for developers of programs and apps for Apple devices.

Tcl/Tk

Tcl is a powerful scripting language and Tk is the toolkit that allows programmers to create graphical user interfaces for their Tcl applications.

Unified Modeling Language

Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a graphical modeling language used to design and visualize large computer systems. It is generally used before a project is started so that it can be better managed.

C#

Used as the primary language for .NET programming, and much like C++, it is an extension of the C programming language with the major addition being object-oriented capabilities.

VHDL

VHDL is the other popular hardware description language. In fact, most professionals who know VHDL also know Verilog.

Verilog

Verilog is a hardware description language — like a programming language, but for designing (and increasingly building) hardware. If you want to get into the computer chip design business, Verilog is one of the first places to start.

WAP/WML

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and WML (Wireless Markup Language) were two early technologies used to deliver and render webpages on mobile devices. Technology has made then unnecessary, but they are an important part of the history of today's smartphones.

XML

XML is a highly structured markup language that is designed to be both human and machine readable.

SAS

widely used in government, academia, and business. For people who have a lot of data they need to make sense of, SAS is an obvious choice.

Perl

A very useful tool for almost any programmer. As an interpreted language it does not need to compile, and is sometimes referred to as the "swiss army knife" of scripting languages.

ALGOL

ALGOL was one of the earliest high-level languages. But unlike Fortran and COBOL, it isn't much used. Just the same, it has been very important as a model for languages that came later.

Alice

Alice is a visual programming language, used to teach students basic computer science concepts. It uses 3D objects and a point-and-click interface to provide an easy way for students to get started with traditional programming.

Objective-C

Another version of C, created in the 1980s to provide a fully Object-Oriented implementation of C. Its primary use now is on the Mac OSX and iOS operating systems. Until recently, iOS apps had to be written in Objective-C, but now Swift is an option as well.

COBOL

COBOL is one of the oldest high-level programming languages. And many people think it is dead. But it is still in use throughout business and government doing mission-critical tasks. And that code still needs to be maintained and expanded. It offers an unusual opportunity for young software developers.

Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver is a powerful website building tool that allows the user to create visually without losing the complete control of hand coding.

F#

F# is a general-purpose programming language, designed to be extremely efficient. At first only a Microsoft language, it is now open-source and used on all platforms.

Functional Programming

Functional programming describes certain kinds of languages and an approach to programming. Get introduced to this system and find out how to learn more.

HTML

HTML is not a programming language, it is a markup language — a language for adding semantic and stylistic annotations to content. It is the primary language for web content, and is a fundamental skill for web designers and web developers, as well as for anyone (writers, editors) who produces content for the web.

C

If you include its two derivatives, no language has had more use and more impact than C. It is especially important for the development of Operating Systems and other foundational software. Many compilers and interpreters for other languages are written in C.

PHP

PHP is the most popular server-side language on the internet today. It is incredibly powerful yet easy to learn.

PL/I

PL/I — or "Programming Language One" — dates back to the 1960s. Although never as popular as Fortran and COBOL, there is still PL/I code in use that needs maintaining and converting.

PL/SQL

PL/SQL is a procedural language build on top of SQL for programming for Oracle databases.

Python

Python is a high-level programming language. It is an interpreted (not compiled) language, also known as a "scripting language." It is mostly used as a tool for performing ad hoc programming tasks such as task automation and data analysis. It has a strong set of tools for mathematical and scientific computing, and is frequently used by researchers.

Go

The Go programming language, or golang, was released by Google in 2007. It was based on C and designed to remove some of the complexities out of C++. Although originally created as a systems programming language, it is now even used to create smartphone apps.

APL

APL is short for A Programming Language, and it is indeed that. Although it was created in the early 1960s, it is still in use because of its power. Just the same, it is a very strange language.

ASP / ASP.NET

ASP is short for Active Server Pages. It was the first server-side scripting language for Microsoft's IIS web server. ASP was replaced by ASP.NET, an open-source server-side framework

ActionScript

ActionScript is the programming language used to create Adobe Flash applications. Although Flash may be less important than it once was because of HTML5, it is still an exciting development system for creating graphics, animations, and games.

Ada

Ada is a programming language developed for the US Department of Defense for creating mission-critical applications. Although it isn't widely used, it is the language of choice when safety is critically important like in air traffic control applications.

Modula-3

Although Modula-3 is not used much anymore, it is incredibly important in the development of programming languages. What's more, there's still plenty of Modula-3 code out there needing to be maintained.

Visual FoxPro

Although no longer actively developed by Microsoft, Visual FoxPro is still a very popular database application development environment and programming language. There is a huge installed base of business applications that still need to be maintained, so programming professionals still use it.

Assembly Language

Assembly language is the most fundamental kind of software development where the coder has complete access to the CPU. Whether used directly or as a way to better understand computers at the hardware level, assembly language programming is a powerful skill to have.

MetaQuotes Language

The MetaQuotes language was developed for use with MetaTrader Software. It allows developers to create trading robots. But there are two competing, and rather different versions: MQL4 and MQL5. But if you want to get into financial trading programming, you needn't worry. We have all the resources you need to figure it out.

IDL

IDL, or Interactive Data Language, is a computer programming language used primarily for data analysis and visualization. It is still widely used in aerospace and astronomy.

INTERCAL

INTERCAL is a parody computer language designed in the early 1970s. It was meant to make fun of the tendencies for programming languages to be overly technical and difficult to understand. But it's still a real language that you can download and maybe even get to do things for you. This is assuming you are nice enough — but not too nice, because INTERCAL doesn't like that either.

Logo

Logo was one of the earliest teaching programming languages, and still probably the best known. It was famous for its turtle that children would cause to move around with computer commands. It is a fun way for kids to become familiar with programming.

ML

ML was originally designed as a meta-programming language: a language to be used to create other languages. But over time, it has come to be a general-purpose language, widely used in education as well as math, science, and even finance.

MS Access

MS Access is a database system. Although it isn't used that much anymore, it is still a great tool for small projects. And there is a huge number of legacy systems that depend upon MS Access.

XSL

More than advances in technology and manufacturing, the history of computer science is really about the development of programming and programming languages. It is more about advances in math and logic than about processors and megabytes.

MySQL

MySQL is one of the most popular database systems in the world. It is especially important as the basis of content management systems like WordPress.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) allow you to change the look of web pages. It's usually the first thing you learn after HTML. CSS isn't a traditional language, but it is an incredibly useful one. This article provides a complete introduction to CSS along with a section on writing efficient code and dealing with the very big subject of colors. It also includes a complete list of CSS color names.

Erlang and Elixir

Erlang is an old programming language, first designed to address telecommunications problems. But its emphasis on concurrent design has made it increasingly popular for the development of distributed applications like games and e-commerce applications. Elixir is a functional computer language designed for creating large-scale concurrent and distributed applications such as social networks. Want to create the next Facebook? Elixir may be the language to use. Learn all about the language, its basis on Erlang, and functional programming generally.

FORTRAN

Fortran first appeared in 1957 and is still used today to solve some of the most complicated problems in modern science and engineering.

Haskell

Haskell is one of the most popular functional programming languages, in addition to being the basis for about a dozen others. It is widely used in business and academia and is a great language to get started with functional programming.

BBC Basic

It might seem hard to believe but in the early 1980s, the television broadcaster BBC had a computer and programming language developed simply for the purpose of producing an educational series, The Computer Programme. And it was successful! Now its an amazing bit of computer history, but you can still get and use the language.

RapidWeaver

RapidWeaver is a website building tool. Written for the Mac, it has a number of advantages over online website building tools.

Ruby on Rails

Ruby is a popular programming language. It is particularly associated with Rails, a web development framework for the Ruby programming language. It provides an MVC (Model View Controller) architecture, a database abstraction layer, and a lot of tools to speed the process of web application programming.

SNOBOL

SNOBOL is a family of programming languages created in the 1960s especially for the purpose of processing text. Since then, more powerful tools have been developed, but it is still quite interesting, especially within the history of natural language processing and chatbots.

SQL

SQL is the Structured Query Language, a language used to communicate with Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS). SQL allows a programmer to create data structures, insert and edit data, and query data.

Smalltalk

Smalltalk is a hugely influential object-oriented programming language. Over the years, it has become less widely used. But with the release of the development framework Seaside, Smalltalk has seen a resurgence in use, because it makes just about any Smalltalk implementation easy to use to create web applications.

TeX and LaTeX

TeX and LaTeX are languages that allow coders to typeset documents. Using them is quite different from using a word processor, but far more powerful and easier for typesetting long documents like books.