Computers need programming languages to function. That’s just a simple fact of life. However, these languages didn’t just spring up out of nowhere. They were developed by people for explicit purposes.

Long before you were picking up Python and JavaScript, in the predawn darkness of May 1, 1964, a modest but pivotal moment in computing history unfolded at Dartmouth College. Mathematicians John G.

Pascal, the programming language he created in the early days of personal computing, offered a simpler alternative to other languages in use at the time. By Michael S. Rosenwald In 1999, an ...