A Brief History of Programming Languages: A Review of “Codes That Changed the World”

As part of the Make It Digital campaign, in April BBC Radio 4 first broadcast a series about “Codes That Changed the World,” in which journalist Aleks Krotoski presents a history of programming languages divided into five easily digestible 15-minute sound bites. The first four episodes focus on a different programming language in chronological order from Fortran, which is widely considered the progenitor of an modern computing languages, to Java, a language most of people have heard of even if they know little about it.

Krotoski introduces key computing terms such as compilers, interpreters, low level languages, high level languages and functional programming languages using uncomplicated language and real-world analogies. I found this refreshing because often computer science theory is presented using mathematical notation and complex technical terminology, which can be daunting for beginners and non-engineers.

The episodes feature interviews with women programmers like Barbara Alexander (Ep 1, Fortran), Jill Clark (Ep 2, Cobol), Sophie Wilson (Ep 3, Basic) and Haskell coder Elise Huard. This disrupts the notion that computing and the tech industry is solely the realm of men and highlights the contributions made by women in tech. Although, this does not discount the fact the barriers-to-entry were high for women technologists in the fifties and sixties. Alexander remarks that upon graduating from Cambridge University she was told at the women’s job appointments board that she “must want to teach since she had done maths.” She firmly told them that no, she did not, and took herself to the men’s appointments board where she landed her first job as a Fortran programmer.

Also, a large part of the Cobol episode is dedicated to the work of Grace Hopper, an American computer scientist who was arguably one of the most influential women in twentieth century computing. Hopper sat on the committee responsible for developing Cobol (Common Business-Oriented Language) and strongly advocated that the language should be as close to written English as possible so as to encourage as many people as possible to take up programming. Hopper gives her name to the world’s largest celebration of women in computing and the London Hopper Colloquium, a conference for women computer science researchers that is co-hosted by UCL and the British Computer Society.

In the final episode Krotoksi and technology writer Rupert Goodwins discuss how we now have specialised programming languages, which are developed to perform niche jobs. They also explain how the existence of very large code bases and how the management of these code bases is essential for them to work properly and to avoid the high costs of system failure.

As a computer science student, I thought that the radio series was very informative and well-produced. Although, I did find the background music, what sounded like punch-card machine in the earlier episodes that evolved into electronic dance music and a computer-synthesised voice singing code, slightly off-putting and unnecessary. Overall, I’m really pleased that the BBC made a show about coding and the history of computer science.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

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Codes That Changed The World Episodes 1 to 4 (from Box of Broadcasts):

1. Codes That Changed the World: Fortran, [radio programme, online], Prod. credit Peter McManus, Prod. British Broadcasting Corporation, Prod. country United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 13:45 6/4/2015, BBC Radio 4, 15mins. http://bobnational.net/record/287133, (Accessed: 05/12/2015).
2. Codes That Changed the World: Cobol, [radio programme, online], Prod. credit Peter McManus, Prod. British Broadcasting Corporation, Prod. country United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 13:45 7/4/2015, BBC Radio 4, 15mins. http://bobnational.net/record/287134, (Accessed: 05/12/2015).
3. Codes That Changed the World: Basic, [radio programme, online], Prod. credit Peter McManus, Prod. British Broadcasting Corporation, Prod. country United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 13:45 7/4/2015, BBC Radio 4, 15mins. http://bobnational.net/record/287135, (Accessed: 05/12/2015).
4. Codes That Changed the World: Java, [radio programme, online], Prod. credit Peter McManus, Prod. British Broadcasting Corporation, Prod. country United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 13:45 7/4/2015, BBC Radio 4, 15mins. http://bobnational.net/record/287132, (Accessed: 05/12/2015).

Also, all the episodes can be downloaded as podcasts from the BBC:

1. BBC iPlayer Radio Codes That Changed the World [podcast, online], Prod. credit Peter McManus, Prod. British Broadcasting Corporation, Prod. country United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 10/4/2015, BBC Radio 4, 75mins.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05qqhqp/episodes/downloads (Accessed: 5/12/2015)