A History of the History of Programming Languages

摘要

As we celebrate ACM's first 60 years, it seems appropriate to acknowledge the contributions to the historical record made by the three ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Language (HOPL) conferences. In 1978, 1993, and the upcoming third installation June 9-10 (in San Diego), the HOPL conferences capture the history of most of the important computer languages by getting individuals who were involved in the development of 40+ programming languages to tell their stories. The HOPL (Ⅰ) attendees heard John Backus explain the origins of FORTRAN, the first language to be standardized; HOPL-Ⅱ attendees heard Dennis Ritchie share his memories of the development of C; and HOPL-Ⅲ attendees will hear Bjarne Stroustrup continue the history of C++ that he began at HOPL-Ⅱ. This article traces the history of the HOPL conferences in the hope of inspiring other ACM SIGs to document the history of additional subfields.