The Generations of Programming Languages | Computer Science History

Programming languages have progressed exponentially over the past half-century. The way you understand programming languages is split into high-level & low-level. But within that, there are five generations of programming languages. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th... pretty easy right? Whereas the 1st & 2nd being low-level languages. And the 3rd, 4th, 5th being high-level languages. You'll notice it progresses as it did through time, with machine language, assembly, Java, Python, and now with these visual tool programming languages.

0:00 Intro
0:57 1GL - Machine Language
2:36 2GL - Assembly Language
5:48 3GL - Our Favorite Languages
8:21 4GL - SQL/MATLAB/Octave
9:37 5GL - OPS5/Mercury/ICAD
11:16 Thanks for Watching!

📓 Learning Resources:

🔧Coding Tools:

[NeetCode]

this 13 min video would have saved me a semester of stress in college lol

[Goku]

If you had programming courses, I'd sign up for an annual subscription. Your content always make so much sense. Thank you.

[lwzEqsWwy]

I really never would have guessed Jesus was a historian.

[jahallday]

I just took a class on assembly. Got a B+. Broke my brain

[kitrodriguez]

This video explained a big chunk of my 1st year in college.

[powderriverfarrier]

Forrest demonstrates too much common sense in his videos. Before you now it he's going to cause people to start thinking creatively. <grin>. Good video mate.

[kaiisheng]

Dude, the production value of your videos are so freaking good!

[stove.d]

Love the style of these last two videos. Good stuff.
As a low-level programmer I can't see why anyone would be writing in machine code, unless they're adding to an instruction set.

[timbertunem]

a good explanation for who wants to know something about history of programming languages, thanks

[ScientistIzaak]

I’ve been researching this topic like crazy and finally found a video that encompasses it all! Great video man!

[zjankowski]

4GL and 5GL languages are truly misclassified. While transitioning from 1GL -> 2GL -> 3GL really feels like moving up the abstraction level, it's not the case for the remaining 2. In 3GL languages, you can just use a framework or a library to operate on a higher level of abstraction and you maintain the ability to change dataflows between your program components up to a single bit. The abilities you lose when using a 3GL language are always related to performance, data storage etc. so usually it simply just cuts you off from the irrelevant stuff, increases your productivity while maintaining the full potential to build any program you want. Those higher-level languages should just be called "special purpose languages".

[maxx]

Great video, you taught me a lot of things and merry X-mas everyone.

[roni]

Hey, Forrest! Love your videos! They’re so informative and well made. I have a suggestion: please post programming tutorials. I have a feeling you’d be a great teacher :)

[Hym-unss]

you save my life by making this video.

[Lupinicus]

Good job, most current 'programmers' have little idea of what came before them (or even how computers actually work)

[OGBhyve]

Most drivers and firmware are written in C or C++. You may have found references to machine code but they would be referring to the use of an assembly language and an assembler.

[thechesslobster]

This type of content is a black hole in terms of CS content on youtube. Excellent video topic choice, hope this blows up.

[jedjedjedjedjedjed]

Cool as heck!! Been enjoying your vids for a couple years now, great job man :)

[KahfiSoobhanZulkifli]

used prolog to create a game for my final coursework in computational logic.

[bluesbasscovers]

Fully agree with you - Python and the others mentioned are 3GL