COmmon Business Oriented Language

language, business /koh'bol/ (COBOL) A programming language

for simple computations on large amounts of data, designed by

the CODASYL Committee in April 1960. COBOL's naturallanguage style is intended to be largely self-documenting.

It introduced the record structure.

COBOL was probably the most widely used programming language

during the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the major programs that

required repair or replacement due to Year 2000 softwarerot issues were originally written in COBOL, and this was

responsible for a short-lived demand for programmers fluent in

this "dead language". Even in 2002 though, new COBOL programs

are still being written in some organisations and many old

COBOL programs are still running in dinosaur shops.

Major revisions in 1968 (ANS X3.23-1968), 1974 (ANS

X3.23-1974) and 1985.

Many hackers regard COBOL with fear and loathing for being

an evil, weak, verbose, and flabby language used by cardwallopers to do boring mindless things on dinosaur

mainframes. Many believe that all COBOL programmers are

suits or code grinders, and would deny all knowledge of

the language.

Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.cobol.

["Initial Specifications for a Common Business Oriented

Language" DoD, US GPO, Apr 1960].

(2002-02-21)