Programming Languages Trivia Quiz
From Ada Lovelace to COBOL, test how well you know the people, ideas, and languages that shaped modern programming.
About this quiz
Programming languages power nearly everything digital, but their stories stretch from Ada Lovelace's early algorithm to the web, operating systems, business software, and AI tools we use today. This 10-question challenge explores the names, origins, and core ideas behind influential languages and concepts.
See how confidently you can identify Python, C, Java, JavaScript, COBOL, HTML, and more. When you finish, you will receive a score that shows how well your programming history knowledge holds up, along with a chance to spot the topics worth revisiting.
Possible results
🐣 Hello World Rookie
SCORE RANGE: 0 – 49
You know code exists behind every app and site, but the languages, creators, and eras that shaped programming are still mostly new ground for you.
💡 Did you know: The first computer programmer wasn't a modern engineer at all — it was Ada Lovelace, writing algorithms in the 1840s.
📄 Junior Dev
SCORE RANGE: 50 – 69
You know the popular names — Python, Java, JavaScript — but some of the deeper history and paradigms behind them are still a bit fuzzy.
📚 So close: Look into functional programming and where languages like Lisp and Haskell fit in — it's a fun rabbit hole.
⚙️ Senior Engineer
SCORE RANGE: 70 – 89
You clearly know your languages and their history, from Ada Lovelace's algorithms to the rise of Python and JavaScript. Just a name or two slipped past you.
🔥 Nicely done: A quick look at the older business and functional languages will round out your knowledge.
🧠 Principal Architect
SCORE RANGE: 90 – 100
From Ada Lovelace's 1840s algorithm to C#, COBOL, and the JavaScript-in-10-days origin story, you've got programming history compiled and running perfectly.
🏆 Your move: Send this to a fellow developer and see who really knows their language history.
Quiz questions
Who is credited with writing the first algorithm intended for processing on a machine, in the mid-1800s, for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine?
What programming language, developed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs in the early 1970s, became foundational for operating systems like Unix?
What language, created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991, is known for its readable syntax and widespread use in data science and AI?
What programming language, released by Sun Microsystems in 1995, follows the philosophy of "write once, run anywhere"?
What scripting language, created by Brendan Eich in just 10 days in 1995, is the primary language for interactive web pages, despite its name suggesting a relation to another language?
What term describes a language, like Java or Python, whose code is run by a virtual machine or interpreter rather than compiled directly to native machine code?
What programming paradigm, central to languages like Haskell and Lisp, treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids changing state?
What language, designed by Microsoft and first released in 2000, is often used with the .NET framework and shares many syntactic similarities with Java?
Which markup language, not itself a programming language, is used to structure content on the web and stands for HyperText Markup Language?
What language, first developed in 1959 for business data processing, has an acronym standing for "Common Business-Oriented Language"?
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