Linus Torvalds started Git in April 2005 to manage Linux kernel development.
Wacky Facts
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Git was written in 2005 because a free licence was withdrawn.
The Linux kernel team used a proprietary tool called BitKeeper for free until the licence was revoked. Linus Torvalds wrote Git as a replacement in 2005; within a few months it was managing the kernel.
The first computer programmer was Ada Lovelace, in the 1840s.
Ada Lovelace published notes on Charles Babbage’s proposed Analytical Engine in 1843, including a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers — widely considered the first published algorithm intended for a machine.
Java was originally called Oak.
James Gosling named it after an oak tree outside his office. The name was already trademarked, so the team renamed it Java — after the coffee.
1957The first high-level programming language was Fortran.
IBM released Fortran in 1957 for scientific computing; it is still used on supercomputers.
SQL was first called SEQUEL.
IBM researchers designed SEQUEL in the early 1970s; it was renamed because of a trademark.
1972The “Hello, World!” tradition started in 1970s.
Brian Kernighan used it in a 1972 tutorial and in the famous book “The C Programming Language”.
Python is named after Monty Python, not the snake.
Guido van Rossum was reading scripts from “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” when he started the language and wanted a short, slightly mysterious name. That is why Python tutorials love “spam” and “eggs” as example variables.
The R language is named after its creators’ first names.
R was created by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman at the University of Auckland. The name nods to both of them — and to the S language it was inspired by.
The first version of JavaScript was written in about 10 days.
Brendan Eich built the prototype at Netscape in May 1995 under a tight deadline. Some of its famous quirks date back to that sprint and can never be removed without breaking the web.
Linux was announced as “just a hobby, won’t be big”.
On 25 August 1991 Linus Torvalds posted that he was making a free operating system — “just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu”. Today Linux runs most web servers, all of the world’s top supercomputers and Android phones.
Linux runs most of the world’s servers and all top supercomputers.
Since 2017 every system on the TOP500 supercomputer list has run Linux.
1959COBOL still runs much of the world’s banking.
Designed in 1959, COBOL code still handles a large share of banking transactions.
Python was first released in 1991.
Guido van Rossum began Python as a hobby project over the Christmas holidays of 1989 and released version 0.9.0 in February 1991 — the same year Linux was announced.