Introduction
Voici une chronologie non exhaustive des langages de programmation.
Avant 1950
| Années | Langage | Promoteur |
| vers 1840 | Premier programme au monde | Ada Lovelace |
| 1945 | Plankalkül | Konrad Zuse |
Années 1960
| Années | Langage | Inspiration | Promoteur |
| 1960 | COBOL | FLOW-MATIC, COMTRAN | Le comité Codasyl |
| 1960 | ALGOL 60 | ALGOL | |
| 1960 | JOSS | ALGOL | |
| 1962 | FORTRAN IV | FORTRAN II | |
| 1962 | APL | | Kenneth E. Iverson |
| 1962 | MAD | ALGOL58 | Arden, et. al. |
| 1962 | Simula I | ALGOL60 | |
| 1962 | SNOBOL | FORTRAN II | Griswold, et al. |
| 1962 | SNOBOL3 | SNOBOL | Griswold, et al. |
| 1963 | CPL | ALGOL60 | Barron, Strachey, et al. |
| 1964 | COWSEL | CPL, LISP | Burstall, Popplestone |
| 1964 | PL/I | ALGOL60 | IBM |
| 1964 | BASIC | FORTRAN II, JOSS | Kemeny and Kurtz |
| 1964 | TRAC | | Mooers (work started in 1959) |
| 1965 | LISP 1.5 | Lisp | |
| 1966 | FORTRAN IV | FORTRAN II | |
| 1966 | ISWIM | Lisp | Peter J. Landin |
| 1966 | CORAL66 | ALGOL60 | Version temps réel de l'ALGOL60 |
| 1967 | BCPL | CPL | Martin Richards |
| 1967 | MUMPS | Fortran, Lisp | Massachusetts General Hospital |
| 1967 | InterLisp | Lisp 1.5 | développé chez BBN (né BBN-Lisp) |
| 1967 | Simula67 | Simula | |
| 1967 | SNOBOL4 | SNOBOL3 | Griswold, et al. |
| 1968 | ALGOL 68 | Algol60 | Wijngaarten, et al. |
| 1968 | POP-1 | COWSEL | Burstall, Popplestone |
| 1968 | Forth | | Chuck Moore (première publication, 1970) |
| 1968 | LOGO | Lisp | Seymour Papert |
| 1968 | REFAL | | Valentin Turchin |
| 1969 | B | BCPL | Ken Thompson |
Années 1950
| Années | Langage | Inspiration | Promoteur |
| 1952 | A-0 | | Grace Hopper |
| 1954 | Mark I Autocode | | Tony Brooker |
| 1954 | FORTRAN | A-0 | John Backus |
| 1954 | ARITH-MATIC | A-0 | Grace Hopper |
| 1954 | MATH-MATIC | A-0 | Grace Hopper |
| 1955 | FLOW-MATIC | A-0 | Grace Hopper |
| 1956 | IPL | | Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, Herbert Simon |
| 1957 | COMTRAN | FLOW-MATIC | Bob Bemer |
| 1957 | PAF | | Dimitri Starynkevitch (SEA, France) |
| 1958 | FORTRAN II | FORTRAN | John Backus |
| 1958 | ALGOL 58 | FORTRAN | |
| 1959 | LISP | IPL | John McCarthy |
Années 1980
| Années | Langage | Inspiration | Promoteur |
| 1980 | « C with Classes » | C, Simula67 | Bjarne Stroustrup |
| 1980 | ABAP/4 | COBOL | SAP |
| 1980 | Smalltalk-80 | Simula67 | Digitalk |
| 1983 | Ada | Green | DOD |
| 1983 | C++ | C with Classes | Bjarne Stroustrup |
| 1983 | Turbo Pascal | Pascal | Anders Hejlsberg |
| 1983 | True BASIC | BASIC | John George Kemeny et Thomas Kurtz |
| 1984 | SML (Standard Meta-Language) | | |
| 1984 | Common Lisp | Inter, Mac, Zeta Lisp | Guy L. Steele et al. |
| 1984 | Esterel | | Gerard Berry |
| 1984 | Clipper | dBase | Nantucket |
| 1985 | 1984 MUMPS | 1977MUMPS | |
| 1985 | Paradox | dBase | Borland |
| 1985 | PostScript | Interpress | John Warnock |
| 1985 | Caml | ML | INRIA |
| 1985 | Quick BASIC | BASIC | Microsoft |
| 1986 | LabVIEW | | National Instruments |
| 1986 | GFA BASIC | BASIC | GFA Systemtechnik GmbH |
| 1986 | Eiffel | Simula67 | Bertrand Meyer |
| 1986 | Informix-4GL | 4GL | Informix |
| 1987 | HyperTalk | | Apple |
| 1987 | Self | | Sun Microsystems Inc. (Self a inspiré JavaScript et NewtonScript) |
| 1987 | SQLL-1 | | |
| 1987 | Perl | Awk | Larry Wall |
| 1988 | Octave | MATLAB | |
| 1988 | dBaseIV | dBase-III | |
| 1988 | Tcl | Awk, Lisp | John Ousterhout |
| 1988 | Object REXX | REXX | Simon Nash |
| 1989 | Turbo-Pascal+OOP | Turbo Pascal | Borland |
| 1989 | Standard C | C | ANSI X3.159-1989 (adopté par l' ISO in 1990) |
| 1989 | OBERON | Pascal, Modula-II | Niklaus Wirth |
| 1989 | VisSim | C, VisSim | Peter A. Darnell |
