How COBOL Still Powers The Global Economy At 60 Years Old
A 60-year-old computer language powers the global economy.
Estimates as high as 80% of financial transactions use common business-oriented language, or COBOL. Now as programmers retire and fewer are joining the workforce to replace them, the future for the language is uncertain. But rumors of COBOLs demise are nothing new.
Its death has been predicted many times. In fact, if there is one constant in the history of COBOL it may be predictions of the programming languages death.
COBOL was created in 1959 by industry and government programmers but even then its future was uncertain.
In less than a year there were rumors all over the industry that COBOL was dying, said Grace Hopper, rear admiral and programmer who helped design the language in a 1981 lecture.
Read more: https://www.tpr.org/post/how-cobol-still-powers-global-economy-60-years-old
tymorial
(3,433 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)It's crazy to me that in 40 years C has not produced an equally capable linear algebra library.
sinkingfeeling
(52,985 posts)has been attempting to migrate from COBOL for 20 years.
unc70
(6,325 posts)The big three of program development, each still widely used but rarely taught in colleges.
William Seger
(11,036 posts)... both designed by committees to be all things to all programming, both fell somewhat short.
unc70
(6,325 posts)I am one of the world's experts on PL/I. Compiler writer, member of the Standards committee, etc.
I would agree with criticisms is some areas. For example, the orthogonality in the original design was overdone. There was no need for the COMPLEX attribute being applied additively to currency other than to be able to specify imaginary dollars.
Be curious what your perceived problems with language the might be. Most of the criticisms were addressed several decades ago and codified in the revised standard.
William Seger
(11,036 posts)i.e. the need for a COBOL/FORTRAN hybrid.
unc70
(6,325 posts)Was originally intended to be the new version of FORTRAN, the New Programming Language (NPL). Yes, the resulting language included many of the features of FORTRAN, COBOL, and ALGOL. Yes, it was designed by a committee. (At least it was designed unlike messes like C and C++.) But interestingly, even more features were later included in FORTRAN (and even in Basic!) than were in PL/I.
The PL/I Standards Committee actually pounded the language significantly in producing a General Purpose Subset which has supplanted the Full language in mire-recent implementations.