Q 01/05

Which programmer created the C language at Bell Labs in 1972?

A) Dennis Ritchie

B) Ken Thompson

C) Brian Kernighan

D) Bjarne Stroustrup

Answer · why

A) Dennis Ritchie

Its first job was writing utilities for Unix, and it was soon used to rewrite the Unix kernel itself.

Q 02/05

Brendan Eich created JavaScript in 1995 while working at which company?

A) Sun Microsystems

B) Netscape

C) Macromedia

D) Borland

Answer · why

B) Netscape

Eich was originally hired to embed the Scheme language in the browser, then told to build something that looked like Java instead.

Q 03/05

When JavaScript first shipped in a browser beta in September 1995, what was it called?

A) Mocha

B) WebScript

C) LiveScript

D) NetScript

Answer · why

C) LiveScript

The switch to the JavaScript name in December rode the hype around Java during the dot-com boom, and Eich has called it a marketing ploy.

Q 04/05

Who designed the Java language at Sun Microsystems?

A) Guy Steele

B) Scott McNealy

C) Patrick Naughton

D) James Gosling

Answer · why

D) James Gosling

It was released in May 1995 with the promise that programmers could write once and run anywhere.

Q 05/05

Java was initially named after a tree standing outside its creator's office. Which tree?

A) Oak

B) Elm

C) Maple

D) Cedar

Answer · why

A) Oak

The name changed before the 1995 release, and the language later passed to Oracle when it bought Sun in 2010.