Fortran was the first commercial programming language ever, and is gaining popularity thanks to the massive need for (scientific) number crunching. Welcome back Fortran," says Tiobe.

For me, it was my fourth programming language, after BASIC, PDP-8 assembly language, and PDP-8 binary (yes, I wrote binary code so I could toggle it in on the front panel of an early minicomputer).

The high-level programming language was created to eliminate machine dependency. Languages such as COBOL, FORTRAN, BASIC and C were designed to run on many different computers.

Python maintains its runaway top ranking in the Tiobe index of programming language popularity, while older languages ...

While more powerful languages like FORTRAN, C, and Java eventually overtook BASIC in the professional world, it remained a teaching tool well into the 21st century.