Could you recommend a good reference on this topic? Or would you be interested in writing and article on this subject?

Here are some thoughts, based on my experience. This is just a (small) starting point. Could you help me build a much better lists, and provide details on each language? Maybe a tree that shows for each language, its parent(s) (e.g. C++ has C and Pascal Oriented Object as parents)

Classification by function:

• DataBase: SQL, noSQL, SAS
• Specialized: R, SAS, LaTex
• Visualization: ?
• Data Mining: PMML
• Web: HTML, JavaScript, XML, PHP
• Operating System: C Shell, Awk
• Macro: SAS, C Shell
• Social Networks: to write Apps
• General: C++

Classification by type:

• Interpreted: Basic, Perl
• Compiled: C++
• Visual: VB, Visual C++
• Scripting languages: Perl, Python
• Object Oriented, C++, Java, Python, R
• API: SOAP, WSDL

History

1. Assember, HP language for HP calculator (1970)
2. Fortran, Cobol, SQL (1970)
3. Lisp, APL, Pascal (1980)
4. C, C++, R (1990)
5. Perl, Java, C#, PHP (1990)
6. Python, Ruby (2000)

Related Articles:

• 86 Helpful Tools for the Data Professional
• List of Free Statistical Software Packages
• List of programming languages
• Six keywords characterizing milestones in the history of analytic e...
• History about 24 analytic software over the last 30 years