Understanding the development of modern programming languages in an evolutionary framework [Comprendere lo sviluppo dei moderni linguaggi di programmazione in chiave evolutiva]

The Evolutionary Theory has been used to analyze non biological systems, such as the evolution of technology and that of human languages. Even the history of programming languages can be observed in an evolutionary framework, since it displays variation and selection processes. In this paper, rather than casting programming languages evolution into the Darwinian account, we borrow the biological talking to unveil evolutionary patterns and driving forces that unfold behind the development of this rich scientific area