Programmers at work
A history of personal workstations
A history of personal workstations
The definition of Standard ML
Some Approaches to, and Illustrations of, Programming Language History
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
A quarter century of UNIX
The design and evolution of C++
The design and evolution of C++
History of programming languages---II
History of programming languages---II
A history of modern computing
An introduction to database systems (7th ed.)
An introduction to database systems (7th ed.)
Evolution of Data-Base Management Systems
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
Report on the algorithmic language ALGOL 60
Communications of the ACM
Roster of programming languages for 1976-77
ACM SIGPLAN Notices
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From the outset, the development of software has been directed toward the apparently contradictory, but in fact complementary goals of bringing the computer closer to the user while keeping the user at a distance. The first goal has involved the creation of programming languages and systems to facilitate the development of the applications that make the computer useful. The second has included the operating systems that oversee these applications and manage the hardware and software resources on which they draw. Looking back from the 1990s, one may divide the history of software into two major periods: an industrial period, during which the main areas of software--programming languages; operating systems; data handling; and software tools, techniques, and methodologies--were established; and a consumer period, during which those products were adapted to the personal computer and to the needs and interests of nonexpert users. The second stage in particular has focused on making computers ";user-friendly" by interposing layers of transparent software between the user and the machine (see TRANSPARENCY).