# The oldest programming languages still in use

Fortran, Lisp and COBOL date from the 1950s and still run today in labs, banks and government offices: the veterans of programming. Which one have you worked with?

- 3 votes · 10 items
- Mar 25, 2025 · Jasmin Schmitz
- https://even.best/en/l/3092/the-oldest-programming-languages-still-in-use

## Top 10

1. **COBOL (1959)** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Still running in banks and government offices.
2. **Smalltalk (1972)** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — A pioneer of object-oriented programming.
3. **Prolog (1972)** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Logic programming from France.
4. **Fortran (1957)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The first high-level language, still used in science today.
5. **Lisp (1958)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — By John McCarthy, the language of early AI.
6. **BASIC (1964)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The beginner's language of home computers.
7. **Pascal (1970)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — By Niklaus Wirth, designed for teaching.
8. **C (1972)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The language of Unix and the basis of many others.
9. **SQL (1974)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — The language of databases.
10. **Ada (1980)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Named after Ada Lovelace, for safety-critical systems.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.