| 1946 | Konrad Zuse | Plankalkul | published 1972 |
| 1949 | John Mauchly | Short Code (Brief Code) | relied on manual conversion |
| 1952 | Grace Hopper | A-0 | first compiler (on UNIVAC) |
| 1957 | John Backhus et. al. | Fortran | first complete compiler (on IBM 704); introduced subroutines, functions, loops |
| 1960 | Algol 60 | introduced block-structured language, BNF |
|
| 1960 | Cobol | multiple platforms |
|
| 1964 | Ole-Johan Dahl, Kristan Nygaard | Simula | introduced classes, inheritance and objects |
| 1965 | Donald Knuth | attribute grammars, LR parsing |
|
| 1966 | Niklaus Wirth | Algol W | introduced records, case, passing parameters by value, precedence of operators. |
| 1968 | Algol 68 | introduced casting of types. |
|
| 1972 | Dennis Ritchie | C |
|
| 1986 | Bjarne Stroustrup | C++ |
|
| 1994 | James Gosling et. al. | Java |
|