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.
mainframes. Many believe that all COBOL programmers are
the language.
["Initial Specifications for a Common Business Oriented
Language" DoD, US GPO, Apr 1960].
(2002-02-21)