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.

For the rest of the history of modern programming languages -- because C was really just the beginning! -- check out the infographic below. You can click it to zoom in.

If you were a Windows programmer in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most likely you had a copy of Programming Windows by Charles Petzold on your bookshelf. The book, in its many editions, was so ...