This article is part of the sequence The Basics You Won't Learn in the Basics aimed at eager people striving to gain a deeper understanding of programming and computer science.
When I started programming, I got introduced to C# and I thought it was pretty fun. As I advanced in my studies, I learned other programming languages as well. I learned JavaScript, PHP, Java. Even though I learned to code in these languages, what I didn't understand is why are there so many languages? What purpose did they all serve? Furthermore, I was curious where did all these languages came from? How did they come to be? What is a low-level language and why does it still exist? The goal of this article is to try and help you find the answers for some of these questions and to further fire up your curiosity in the nature of programming languages and computers. I will walk you through the evolution of modern programming languages. Why did they come to be and what problem did they solve. …
