The Short and Amazing Past of Programming

Given the impact of computer programming on ourhad to be devised to operate a specific machine. The
daily lives, it is easy to forget it is a relatively newmachines could be reprogrammed, but the information
development, particularly on a wide scale usage as wecould not be stored. Every change required
see today.reprogramming again. In 1954, FORTRAN became the
The story of computer programming might be tracedfirst "computer programming language" that could be
back as far as 1206 when an Arab scholar andused to write the codes that would now be stored in
inventor named Al-Jazari made a humanoid robot thatthe memory of the computing device. COBOL and
was operated by a series of cams and levers. Theother unique languages soon followed.
cams and levers could be "programmed" to produceThe last few decades have seen a sudden leap of
various reactions and operations. This was thetechnology in the area of programming. It was like a
essence of programming. It is a method of givingdam had burst and the waters of change swept like a
instructions to a machine.flood over the landscape. Rapid increases in
The Jacqurd Loom in 1801 and the Analytical Engineprocessing ability and the ability to make the physical
made by Charles Babbage in 1830 used punch cardssize of memory hardware smaller and smaller while
to give the instructions to the machine. These twotheir capacity increased created the modern world of
devices were early developments that would ultimatelythe computer that we enjoy today.
lead to programming as it is done today. This earlyThe role of programming has become more complex,
step was the recognition that there was a need to findbut it has also not changed from its fundamental
a way to feed information that was written bypurpose. The programmer still must give the machine
humans into the machine. The punch card was thethe instructions that it needs to perform its intended
foundation of the data processing revolution and forfunction. Although this function has changed from
the next 100 years, it was the method that was usedsimple computing to incredible graphic games and
to program and operate the calculating devices thatmassive data control, the programmer must still write
would usher in the computer age.his program in a language that he understands, but can
It was the invention of the Von Neuman Architecturealso be understood by the computer. The history of
that made it possible to store different programs intoprogramming as it is today may very well be only
memory. Prior to this development, a single programchapter one of a longer saga.