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.

Romera-Paredes and colleagues’ work is the latest step in a long line of research that attempts to create programs automatically by taking inspiration from biological evolution, a field called genetic ...

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.