Programming Language Atlas

A structured reference to language families, paradigms, and implementations

BASIC

Imperative, procedural. First appeared 1964; dynamic scripting; teaching, early microcomputers.

Record

First appeared1964
FamilyDynamic scripting
Paradigm emphasisImperative, procedural
TypingDynamic, weak
MemoryInterpreter-managed
ExecutionInterpreted
Primary domainTeaching, early microcomputers
DesignersKemeny and Kurtz
Referencehttps://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/basic.html
Last verifiednot yet checked against its source by a human

Dates are first public release or publication, not the start of internal development. Colour on the typing and memory tags encodes kind, never rank.

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Influence

Fortran1957ALGOL 601960No indexed descendantBASIC1964
Figure 1. BASIC in the influence graph: recorded ancestors on the left, languages that record it as an influence on the right. Every node links to its own record. Edges name indexed languages only, so an empty side means no indexed relative, not none at all. Source: languages.json.

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Within the Dynamic scripting

Late binding and rapid iteration, usually paired with a large package ecosystem and an interpreter or JIT.

Language First appeared Typing Memory Execution
Smalltalk-80 1980 Dynamic, strong Tracing GC Bytecode VM
Perl 1987 Dynamic, weak Reference counting Interpreted
Self 1987 Dynamic, strong Generational tracing GC JIT
Python 1991 Dynamic, strong Refcount with cycle collector Interpreted
Lua 1993 Dynamic, weak Incremental tracing GC Bytecode VM
JavaScript 1995 Dynamic, weak Tracing GC JIT
PHP 1995 Dynamic, weak Refcount with cycle collector Bytecode VM
Ruby 1995 Dynamic, strong Tracing GC Bytecode VM
TypeScript 2012 Static, erased at runtime Tracing GC (host) Transpiled to JavaScript

9 other languages in this family, ordered by first appearance. BASIC itself is omitted. Source: languages.json.

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