Technology Behind Today's Largest Internet Companies #2: (A Brief Overview of the Hot Programming languages in Internet Technology)

noble-noah (57)in #technology • 7 years ago (edited)

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Introduction

The quest to venture into programming and the challenges facing the newbies in choosing a programming language automatically prompted my last post, I introduced and discussed the factors to be considered when choosing your suitable programming language for learning, together with you, we explored the world of internet technology where I selected few among the largest internet companies and the programming languages in use was listed but not discussed. Today, I will continue from where I stopped, by exploring the aforementioned programming languages in use for the web application, the reason behind their creations, their creators, capabilities, consideration of programming language using difficulty level among others will also be discussed.

subject matter

The following programming languages were discovered and listed to be in used for web application technology: JavaScript, Java, C, C++, PHP, Python, Go, Pearl, Hack, Scala, Ruby on Rails.

JavaScript

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As it is clearly shown in the chart above, JavaScript has been recognized as the most important programming language in today's internet technology and after HTML(Hypertext Mark-Up Language) and CSS(Cascading Stylesheet).

The advent introduction of internet technology led to its creation in May 1995 and it has undergone three names within just six months. i.e. from Mocha to LiveScript and finally JavaScript in December 1995.

The reason behind its creation is not far-fetched, Brendan Eich who created JavaScript for Netscape Communications explained:

We aimed to provide a “glue language” for the Web designers and part time programmers who were building Web content from components such as images, plugins, and Java applets. We saw Java as the “component language” used by higher-priced programmers, where the glue programmers—the Web page designers—would assemble components and automate their interactions using [a scripting language]. source

Although JavaScript has a name similar to Java, it is completely different from Java, it is a dynamic, interpreted, weakly typed, multi-paradigm, prototype-based scripting programming language, which provides dynamic interactivity on websites.

JAVA

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Unlike scripting JavaScript, Java is a general purpose, Object-Oriented Programming language (OOP) which can be used both as front-end development and server-side, It is used to build a stand-alone applications, Java can run on a virtual machine after it is compiled into byte-code and that is the reason behind its accolade 'write once, run anywhere', strongly typed programming language where you have to declare a variable before its usage. It is used majorly as a server-side language in web technology and as a programming language to build stand-alone applications like desktop apps and mobile apps on the Android platform.

Java programming language was also developed in 1995 by James Gosling for Sun Microsystems.

C++

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Just like Java, C++ is a sophisticated, general purpose programming language, an extension of C programming language created by Bjarne Stroustrup in 1979. It was built toward system programming and serves as the main language to many of today's operating systems, games, browsers, system drivers and web apps. C++ is a mid-level language, strongly typed programming language. The fact that it is not a high-level programming language but middle level makes it difficult to learn, especially for the newbies, it has similar syntax with procedural C programming language.

Python

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Its current acceptability and wider use both in academics and industry, especially in web applications, computer graphics, machine learning and the emerging artificial intelligence led to its high popularity in the last 5-10 years, I could remember @mobbs comment on my post

I just felt like Python, for example, was only 5-10 years old!

According to Guido van Rossum who created python in 1991, almost 27 years ago.

In December 1989, I was looking for a "hobby" programming project that would keep me occupied during the week around Christmas. My office ... would be closed, but I had a home computer and not much else on my hands. I decided to write an interpreter for the new scripting language I had been thinking about lately: a descendant of ABC that would appeal to Unix/C hackers. I chose Python as a working title for the project, being in a slightly irreverent mood (and a big fan of Monty Python's Flying Circus). source

PHP

_{_{By Colin Viebrock CC BY-SA 4.0 Via Wikimedia}}

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a scripting programming language that can be embedded within HTML codes to perform a server-side function. It works well with the latest content management system like Joomla, word press. e.t.c. It is one of the most popular open source programming languages and it works well MYSQL, a relational database management system, Xamp and Wamp servers are both popular servers which are used to test run the codes before hosting online.

According to Rasmus Lerdorf who created PHP in 1994

"I don’t know how to stop it, there was never any intent to write a programming language. I have absolutely no idea how to write a programming language, I just kept adding the next logical step on the way. A development team began to form and, after months of work and beta testing, officially released PHP/FI 2 in November 1997.source

C

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C programming language is a general-purpose programming language, Today's hot programming languages like JavaScript, Java, C++, PHP, Rust, Python, Perl, were developed based on the foundation of C language. It was created by Dennis Ritchie between 1969 and 1973 at Bell Laboratories. It is a procedural, strongly typed programming language where you make sure you declare your variables before their usage else you will have to debug your code throughout the day. It is used in system programming, operating system, desktop application and web applications

HACK

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HACK which has a similar name to Hacking, but has nothing to do with it, is an open source programming language created by Facebook in 2014. It is very similar to PHP only that it enjoys both dynamic typing and static typing and that is one of the advancements made in PHP. It is yet to gain so much popularity as it is currently being used by its developer 'Facebook'

GO

_{_{By Facebook Via Wikimedia}}

Just like HACK, Go programming language is an open source programming language created by Google declared in 2009 by Robert Griesemer, Ken Thompson, Rob Pike.

According to its developer 'Google'

Go attempts to combine the development speed of working in a dynamic language like Python with the performance and safety of a compiled language like C or C++. In our experiments with Go to date, typical builds feel instantaneous; even large binaries compile in just a few seconds. And the compiled code runs close to the speed of C. Go is designed to let you move fast. source

SCALAR

_{_{By École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Via Wikimedia}}

Scala is a general-purpose programming language created by Martin Odersky at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2004, a static type programming language which was aimed to serves as an improvement over Java by addressing its criticism. It is gaining popularity nowadays, companies like Apple Inc, coursera, Giit, The Guardian are making use of it.

PEARL

Pearl programming language usually known as Process and Experiment Automation Realtime Language is also a general-purpose programming language created by Larry Wall, first released in 1987. It is a dynamic programming language, an interpreted language like PHP. As we all know that every programming language has its limitation, in order to correct the flaws in Pearl, this lead Gweedo Rossum at the University of Antwerp in Belguim to create another programming language known as Python.

RUBY ON RAILS

_{_{By Jamie Dihiansan Via Wikimedia}}

RUBY ON RAILS is a server-side scripting language created by David Heinemeier Hansson with first release in 2005, it provides a framework for the web using the model view controller pattern incorporated in it to organize application programming.

Thanks for reading through, your thoughts are important.
Until my next post,
keep on sending zeroes and ones.

References

_{All images are from free source websites (Pixabay, Flickr and Wikimedia)}

You can read my previous articles on programming here:

_{[History and Evolution of
Computer Programming Languages]}

_{Programming language,

Human language and The Brain}

_{Why do Non-Computer Science Majors
become better and competent programmers?}

_{Technology Behind Today's Largest Internet Companies}

_{If you write STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) related posts, consider joining #steemSTEM on discord here. If you are from Nigeria, you may want to include the #stemng tag in your post. You can visit this blog by @stemng for more details. You can also check this blog post by @steemstem here and this guideline here for help on how to be a member of @steemstem. Please also check this blog post from @steemstem on the proper use of images devoid of copyright issues here.}