BASIC was an early programming language that is still among the simplest and most popular of programming languages. Originally designed as an interactive mainframe timesharing language by John Kemeney and Thomas Kurtz in 1963, it became widely used on personal computers everywhere. On IBM's first "family" computer, the PCJr, a BASIC cartridge was a popular add-on. Because of its simplicity, BASIC has frequently been used in teaching the introductory concepts of programming with a working language. BASIC continues to be widely used because it can be learned quickly, its statements are easy to read by other Web Developers, and support is available on most operating systems. BASIC's documentation has been translated into many national languages. It often comes with sound and graphics support. A popular version of BASIC today is QBASIC. BASIC is used in many business applications and is still considered a valid choice as a programming language for some purposes. Microsoft's Visual Basic adds object-oriented features and a graphical user interface to the standard BASIC. The following example of BASIC gets a number from a user, multiplies the number by 10, and prints or displays the result: 10 PRINT 'Enter a number', 20 INPUT NUM, 30 PRINT 'your number * 10 is '; NUM*10;

C is a structured, procedural programming language that has been widely used both for operating systems and applications and that has had a wide following in the academic community. Many versions of UNIX-based operating systems are written in C. C has been standardized as part of the Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX). With the increasing popularity of object-oriented programming, C is being rapidly replaced as "the" programming language by C++, a superset of the C language that uses an entirely different set of programming concepts, and by Java, a language similar to but simpler than C++, that was designed for use in distributed networks.

C++ is an object-oriented programming (OOP) language that is viewed by many as the best language for creating large-scale applications. C++ is a superset of the C language. A related programming language, Java, is based on C++ but optimized for the distribution of program objects in a network such as the Internet. Java is somewhat simpler and easier to learn than C++ and has characteristics that give it other advantages over C++. However, both languages require a considerable amount of study.