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IT Terms & History Dictionary
| C | The general-purpose language that grew with UNIX. The birth of C by Dennis Ritchie in 1972, its UNIX porting role, standardization, and lasting influence. |
| COBOL | The veteran language powering business systems. The 1959 birth of COBOL led by Hopper and its continued use in finance and core business systems. |
| C++ | A vast language that began as "C with Classes". How Stroustrup's "C with Classes" became C++, its standardization from C++98 to C++23, and modern uses. |
| C# | Hejlsberg's flagship language for .NET. The 2000 birth of C# at Microsoft under Hejlsberg, its evolution, and its role in Unity. |
| CSS | The declarative language behind the Web's look. From the 1996 CSS1 recommendation by W3C to today's Flexbox and Grid — major versions and history. |
| Go | Google's bet on simplicity. The 2009 launch of Go at Google by Pike, Thompson, and Griesemer, and its modern role. |
| Haskell | The standard pure functional language. Haskell's 1990 birth as a research-driven pure functional language, lazy evaluation, and the monad philosophy. |
| HTML | The markup language that defined the Web. HTML's history from Tim Berners-Lee's 1993 design at CERN through HTML5. |
| Java | The JVM language of "Write Once, Run Anywhere". Java's 1995 launch at Sun Microsystems, the JVM, the Oracle acquisition, and its modern role. |
| JavaScript | The Web's lingua franca built in 10 days. JavaScript's 10-day creation by Brendan Eich at Netscape in 1995, ECMAScript, and the Node.js era. |
| Kotlin | JetBrains' heir-apparent on the JVM. Kotlin's 2011 launch at JetBrains, its anointment as an official Android language by Google, and modern uses. |
| PHP | The server-side language that powered the Web. PHP from Rasmus Lerdorf's 1995 "Personal Home Page Tools" through the WordPress era and its modern re-evaluation. |
| Python | Guido's readability-first language. Python from Guido van Rossum's 1991 release through the 2/3 split and its data-science-era rise. |
| Ruby | The scripting language born in Japan by Matz. Ruby from Matsumoto's 1995 design in Japan through the Rails era and its modern position. |
| Rust | Memory safety through the ownership model. Rust's 2010 launch at Mozilla, the 1.0 stabilization, the ownership model, and modern uses. |
| SQL | The relational query language still going after 50 years. SQL from its 1974 IBM origins through ANSI standardization, dialects, and its position in the NoSQL era. |
| Swift | Apple's successor to Objective-C. Swift from Apple's 2014 announcement through open-sourcing and its expansion to server-side use. |
| TypeScript | Microsoft's statically typed JavaScript layer. TypeScript from Microsoft's 2012 release led by Hejlsberg, its spread through the JS ecosystem, and its current role. |
| Pascal | The textbook of structured programming. The birth, lineage, and modern influence of Pascal designed by Wirth in 1970. |
| Zig | A systems language aiming to be a successor to C. The story of Andrew Kelley starting Zig in 2016, the founding of the Zig Software Foundation, the road to 1.0, and modern adoption. |
| Dart | A language that started as an ambition to replace JavaScript and was reborn through Flutter. Dart from its 2011 launch by Google, the 2015 retreat from browser embedding, its 2017 revival through Flutter, and its modern uses. |
| Fortran | The world's first high-level programming language. Fortran from its 1957 birth at IBM under Backus, the origin of the optimizing compiler, the generational arc through Fortran 2023, and its modern role in numerical computing. |
| Lisp | A high-level language that has stayed in active use for nearly seventy years. Lisp from McCarthy's 1958 design at MIT, the dialect history through Scheme, Common Lisp, and Clojure, and its influence on modern languages. |
| Lua | A lightweight embeddable scripting language born in a Brazilian research lab. Lua from its 1993 birth at PUC-Rio under Ierusalimschy and colleagues, the arrival of LuaJIT, and its broad adoption across the game industry. |
| Perl | The veteran text-processing language behind the CGI golden age. Perl from Larry Wall's 1987 design as a superset of the Unix toolset, the 1990s CGI era, the Perl 6 / Raku split, and its modern uses. |
| R | A language built for statistical analysis and data visualization. R from its origins in Bell Labs' S language in 1976, through Ihaka and Gentleman's 1993 work at the University of Auckland, the rise of CRAN and tidyverse, and its modern uses. |
| Shell Script | The standard automation mechanism on Unix-like systems. The lineage from Thompson shell (1971) to Bourne shell (1977), bash (1989, by Fox), and zsh (1990), and how shells are used today. |
| vi / Vim / Neovim | A lineage of text editors active for half a century. vi created by Bill Joy at UC Berkeley in 1976, Vim released by Bram Moolenaar in 1991, the 2014 Neovim fork, and where these editors stand in modern development. |
| Angular | Google's enterprise-oriented front-end framework. Angular from Misko Hevery's 2010 AngularJS, the 2016 complete rewrite as Angular 2, the TypeScript adoption, and its modern uses. |
| ASP.NET | Microsoft's web framework for .NET. From Classic ASP in 1996 through the 2002 launch of ASP.NET designed by Scott Guthrie, the 2016 complete rewrite as ASP.NET Core, and the modern unified .NET. |
| Bootstrap | The CSS framework that spread UI-kit culture from Twitter. Bootstrap from the 2011 Twitter Blueprint by Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton, through the major version milestones and the move away from jQuery in Bootstrap 5. |
| Django | Python's full-stack web framework. Django from its 2003 origins as the in-house CMS of the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper, the 2005 open-sourcing by Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison, the "Batteries Included" philosophy, and its modern uses. |
| Express | The de facto web framework of the Node.js ecosystem. Express from TJ Holowaychuk's 2010 design, the inheritance of DSL design from Sinatra, the major version milestones, and where it stands in modern Node.js web development. |
| FastAPI | A Python API framework centered on type hints. FastAPI from Sebastián Ramírez's 2018 release combining Starlette and Pydantic, the type-hint-centered design innovation, and rapid adoption for machine-learning APIs. |
| Flask | Python's representative microframework. Flask from Armin Ronacher's 2010 April Fools' release, the combination of Jinja2 and Werkzeug, the Pallets Projects stewardship, and where it stands in modern Python web development. |
| jQuery | The JavaScript library that absorbed browser-compatibility hell. jQuery from John Resig's 2006 release of jQuery 1.0, the popularization of CSS selectors and method chaining, the major version milestones, and where it stands today. |
| Laravel | A widely used web application framework in PHP. Laravel from Taylor Otwell's 2011 release, with its in-house syntax such as Eloquent, Blade, and Artisan, the Composer-based renewal in Laravel 4, and its modern uses. |
| Next.js | A full-stack React-based web framework. Next.js from its 2016 release by Vercel, the design by Guillermo Rauch, the evolution of rendering strategies (SSR, SSG, ISR, RSC), and the Next.js 13 App Router. |
| Node.js | A runtime that executes JavaScript on the server side. Node.js from Ryan Dahl's 2009 design as a solution to the C10K problem, JIT compilation on top of V8, the legendary JSConf EU talk, and the realization of "JavaScript Everywhere." |
| Ruby on Rails | A web application framework written in Ruby. Rails from DHH's in-house development while building Basecamp in 2004, the "Convention over Configuration" philosophy, the 15-minute blog demo, the major version milestones, and the unique evolution that brought Hotwire. |
| React | A leading front-end UI library developed by Meta (formerly Facebook). React from Jordan Walke's 2011 prototype at Facebook, the 2013 JSConf US release, the introduction of JSX and the virtual DOM, the 2018 shift to function components through Hooks, and modern uses. |
| Sass | The leading CSS preprocessor. Sass from the 2006 design by Hampton Catlin and Nathan Weizenbaum, the arrival of SCSS syntax, the implementation transition from LibSass to Dart Sass, and where it stands in modern CSS development. |
| Spring | The de facto framework for Java enterprise development. Spring from Rod Johnson's 2002 book release, the move away from EJB through DI / AOP, the modernization through Spring Boot in 2014, and the wider Spring ecosystem. |
| Tailwind CSS | A utility-first CSS framework. Tailwind CSS from Adam Wathan's 2017 blog post arguing for utility-first CSS, the joint work with Steve Schoger, the JIT compiler, and the business model around Tailwind UI and friends. |
| Vue.js | A progressive JavaScript framework. Vue.js from Evan You's 2014 personal project that extracted the best parts of AngularJS, Vue 3.0's Composition API, the modernization of the developer experience through Vite, and modern uses. |
| AWS | Amazon's cloud computing service. AWS from Amazon's internal infrastructure to the 2006 launch of S3 / EC2, the decision by Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy, the year-by-year arrival of major services, and where it stands in the modern cloud market. |
| Bash | The command interpreter widely used as the standard shell on Linux. From the 1977 Bourne shell, the 1989 development of Bash by Brian Fox under the GNU project, the spread alongside Linux, and where shells stand today. |
| Docker | The platform that turned containers into something anyone can use. Docker from dotCloud's PaaS business around 2010, the in-house tool wrapping LXC, Solomon Hykes's PyCon US 2013 lightning talk, and the forty-year lineage of container technology. |
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