My Heroes

C (pronounced “See”) is a general-purpose computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. Although C was designed for implementing system software, it is also widely used for developing portable application software. C is one of the most popular programming languages and there are only a few computer architectures for which a C compiler does not exist. C has greatly influenced many other popular programming languages, most notably C++, which originally began as an extension to C.

Python is a general-purpose high-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to “[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax”, and its standard library is large and comprehensive. Its use of indentation for block delimiters is unusual among popular programming languages. Python supports multiple programming paradigms (primarily object oriented, imperative, and functional) and features a fully dynamic type system and automatic memory management, similar to that of Perl, Ruby, Scheme, and Tcl. Like other dynamic languages, Python is often used as a scripting language. Python was conceived in the late 1980s and its implementation was started in December 1989 by Guido van Rossum at CWI in the Netherlands as a successor to the ABC programming language (itself inspired by SETL) capable of exception handling and interfacing with the Amoeba operating system. Van Rossum is Python’s principal author, and his continuing central role in deciding the direction of Python is reflected in the title given to him by the Python community, Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL).

JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language used to enable programmatic access to objects within both the client application and other applications. It is primarily used in the form of client-side JavaScript, implemented as an integrated component of the web browser, allowing the development of enhanced user interfaces and dynamic websites. JavaScript is a dialect of the ECMAScript standard and is characterized as a dynamic, weakly typed, prototype-based language with first-class functions. JavaScript was influenced by many languages and was designed to look like Java, but to be easier for non-programmers to work with. Brendan Eich (born 1964) is a computer programmer and creator of the JavaScript programming language. He is the Chief Technology Officer at the Mozilla Corporation.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document. As a general-purpose programming language, PHP code is processed by an interpreter application in command-line mode performing desired operating system operations and producing program output on its standard output channel. It may also function as a graphical application. PHP is available as a processor for most modern web servers and as standalone interpreter on most operating systems and computing platforms. PHP was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995 and has been in continuous development ever since. The main implementation of PHP is now produced by The PHP Group and serves as the de facto standard for PHP as there is no formal specification. PHP is free software released under the PHP License, which is incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL) because restrictions exist regarding the use of the term PHP.

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Linux can be installed on a wide variety of computer hardware, ranging from embedded devices such as mobile phones, smartphones and wristwatches to mainframes and supercomputers. Linux is predominantly known for its use in servers; The name “Linux” comes from the Linux kernel, originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. The contribution of a supporting Userland in the form of system tools and libraries from the GNU Project (announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman) is the basis for the Free Software Foundation’s preferred name GNU/Linux. Linus Benedict Torvalds born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer best known for having initiated the development of the Linux kernel and git revision control system. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project’s coordinator.

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems now a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation, and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems’ Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode (class file) that can run on any Java Virtual Machine (JVM) regardless of computer architecture. Java is general-purpose, concurrent, class-based, and object-oriented, and is specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers “write once, run anywhere”. Java is considered by many as one of the most influential programming languages of the 20th century, and widely used from application software to web application.

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular amongst programmers. Perl borrows features from other programming languages including C, shell scripting (sh), AWK, and sed The language provides powerful text processing facilities without the arbitrary data length limits of many contemporary Unix tools,facilitating easy manipulation of text files. It is also used for graphics programming, system administration, network programming, applications that require database access and CGI programming on the Web. Perl is nicknamed “the Swiss Army chainsaw of programming languages” due to its flexibility and adaptability.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software. The FSF is incorporated in Massachusetts, USA. From its founding until the mid-1980s, FSF’s funds were mostly used to employ software developers to write free software for the GNU Project. Since the mid-1990s, the FSF’s employees and volunteers have mostly worked on legal and structural issues for the free software movement and the free software community. Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated “rms”,is an American software freedom activist, and computer programmer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system, and has been the project’s lead architect and organizer. With the launch of the GNU Project, he initiated the free software movement and, in October 1985, set up the Free Software Foundation.

Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was initially developed and designed by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto. It is based on Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada,[citation needed] and Lisp. Ruby supports multiple programming paradigms, including functional, object oriented, imperative and reflective. It also has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management; it is therefore similar in varying respects to Python, Perl, Lisp, Dylan, and CLU. Yukihiro Matsumoto (born 14 April 1965) is a Japanese computer scientist and software programmer best known as the chief designer of the Ruby programming language and its reference implementation, Matz’s Ruby Interpreter (MRI).

The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache (is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million web site milestone. Apache was the first viable alternative to the Netscape Communications Corporation web server (currently known as Sun Java System Web Server), and has since evolved to rival other Unix-based web servers in terms of functionality and performance. The majority of web servers using Apache run a Linux operating system. Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation. The application is available for a wide variety of operating systems, including Unix, GNU, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, Novell NetWare, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, OS/2, TPF, and eComStation. Released under the Apache License, Apache is characterized as open source software.  Robert M. McCool (born 1973), more commonly known as Rob McCool, is a software developer and architect. McCool was the author of the original NCSA HTTPd web server, later known as the Apache HTTP Server, and until Apache version 2.2, httpd.conf files as distributed contain comments signed with his name. He wrote the first version while he was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was working with the original NCSA Mosaic team.