Why did we move from punch cards to programming languages? What does that tell you about the purpose of programming languages?

The purpose of programming languages is to convey information to a machine, whether it be digitally as we have today, or through a punch card and light system from before. We moved from punch cards to programming languages because of the convenience and scalability of typed code.

There are hundreds of different programming languages out there. Why do you think we need so many?

I believe that different languages are designed for different purposes and settings. For example, a language may integrate differently than another in a specific platform, such as in web development. Overall, different problems require different tools to craft a suitable solution. 

What are some drawbacks of a programming language you use? How would you like it to be different? Think of specific examples.

For example, Python has drawbacks in terms of what platforms it can run on. Python can not seamlessly run on most mobile platforms such as Android and iOS.

If you were going to create a new programming language, how would you start? What do you need to define?

First, there should be syntax, which is the grammar of the new programming language that define rules all code should be structured in. Every language requires a parser or compiler to understand the code a programmer wrote, which uses the syntax rules to translate the code into the individual commands a computer or platform should execute.