Computers need programming languages to function. That’s just a simple fact of life. However, these languages didn’t just spring up out of nowhere. They were developed by people for explicit purposes.

Computer coding ability has gotten especially hip recently. People who can’t code revere it as 21st century sorcery, while those who do it professionally are often driven to fits by it. And it was 50 ...

Did you know that, between 1976 and 1978, Microsoft developed its own version of the BASIC programming language? It was initially called Altair BASIC before becoming Microsoft BASIC, and it was ...

Amy Ko is a professor of computer science and director of the Code and Cognition Lab at the Information School at the University of Washington in Seattle. I had many exciting plans for the end of my ...