<P> To some people, what was the first modern programming language depends on how much power and human - readability is required before the status of "programming language" is granted . Jacquard Looms and Charles Babbage's Difference Engine both had simple, extremely limited languages for describing the actions that these machines should perform . One can even regard the punch holes on a player piano scroll as a limited domain - specific language, albeit not designed for human consumption without adult supervision . </P> <P> In the 1940s, the first recognizably modern electrically powered computers were created . The limited speed and memory capacity forced programmers to write hand tuned assembly language programs . It was eventually realized that programming in assembly language required a great deal of intellectual effort . </P> <P> The first programming languages designed to communicate instructions to a computer were written in the 1950s . An early high - level programming language to be designed for a computer was Plankalkül, developed by the Germans for Z1 by Konrad Zuse between 1943 and 1945 . However, it was not implemented until 1998 and 2000 . </P> <P> John Mauchly's Short Code, proposed in 1949, was one of the first high - level languages ever developed for an electronic computer . Unlike machine code, Short Code statements represented mathematical expressions in understandable form . However, the program had to be translated into machine code every time it ran, making the process much slower than running the equivalent machine code . </P>

When did the programming language came into existence