Company
Date Published
Author
Erik O'Shaughnessy
Word count
1330
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

The history of programming practices reveals an evolution from early cumbersome methods to more efficient and user-friendly approaches. Initially, programming involved manually translating mathematical problems into computer instructions, often using toggle switches, which was both time-consuming and error-prone. The introduction of assemblers marked a significant improvement, allowing instructions to be written in a more human-readable form, despite initial resistance due to concerns about computational efficiency. The development of compiled languages like FORTRAN and C further simplified programming by enabling code to be written in a manner akin to mathematical expressions, with compilers translating high-level language into machine code. This advancement facilitated easier porting of programs across different hardware platforms, as only the compiler needed to be adapted to a new system. Eventually, interpreters emerged, allowing programs to be executed immediately by translating them into an intermediate form during runtime, despite being slower than compiled programs. The rise of interpreted languages like Python exemplifies this shift, offering ease of use and cross-platform compatibility, with modern computers mitigating the performance gap between interpreted and compiled code.