how did programming start?

Question

When the first computer was invented, there obviously were no programming languages like C++. so how did people start programming, and create the languages that exist today.

Answer 1

At first, everybody used machine code. They actually had to figure out what machine code instructions to use in their program, and entered those by hand. After a while they come up with Assembly, which has a 1-to-1 correspondence with machine code instructions but is easier to read; and when computers got good enough, it became possible to create a program in the computer that would turn Assembly code into machine code. Then, as computers got even more powerful, people realized that they could use higher-level languages that worked in a more intuitive manner, and still have enough resources to translate those down into machine code. The first major high-level language was Fortran, which appeared in the late 1950s.

Answer 2

There were a lot of people, places, and ideas that contributed to the formation of computer science and programming. Off the top of my head, here are some interesting ones:



George Boole: Inventor of Boolean algebra before there was even a need or puprose for binary mathmatics(1800s).



Herman Hollerith: The inventory of radix sort and the need to process huge amounts of census data. it used to take 10 years to process the census which needed to occur every 10 years.



Punch Cards: If I remember correctly, the first "programmable" machines were looms creating textiles. Although these were used at the beginning of the 17th century they carried over until the late 20th century.



Bell Labs: Where the transistor(one of the most important inventions of all time), C language, C++ were all invented... as well as a lot of work on theoretical physics.



A few interesting links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuse_Z3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabulating_machines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra_(logic)

Answer 3

There was also Ada Lovelace who was regarded as the first computer programmer - look her up. She was a friend of Charles Babbage, creator of the 'Difference Engine', so is a model for female interest in computers and mathematics... (this was back in the mid 19th century)