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TexasTowelie

(116,744 posts)
Wed May 29, 2019, 05:09 AM May 2019

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 COBOL’s 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 language’s 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

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How COBOL Still Powers The Global Economy At 60 Years Old (Original Post) TexasTowelie May 2019 OP
FORTRAN is still used too. Pretty cool tymorial May 2019 #1
BLAS is still Fortran; all math software relies on it Recursion May 2019 #5
Loved COBOL. My son is a programmer for large insurance company that sinkingfeeling May 2019 #2
So is PL/I, the third 1960s language unc70 May 2019 #3
The third and worst, until C++ came along William Seger Jun 2019 #6
I strongly disagree, but then ... unc70 Jun 2019 #7
IMO, it was a complex solution to an imaginary problem William Seger Jun 2019 #8
Was not an imaginary problem unc70 Jun 2019 #9
Invented by Grace Murray Hopper Recursion May 2019 #4

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
5. BLAS is still Fortran; all math software relies on it
Wed May 29, 2019, 08:42 AM
May 2019

It's crazy to me that in 40 years C has not produced an equally capable linear algebra library.

sinkingfeeling

(52,985 posts)
2. Loved COBOL. My son is a programmer for large insurance company that
Wed May 29, 2019, 06:33 AM
May 2019

has been attempting to migrate from COBOL for 20 years.

unc70

(6,325 posts)
3. So is PL/I, the third 1960s language
Wed May 29, 2019, 07:54 AM
May 2019

The big three of program development, each still widely used but rarely taught in colleges.

William Seger

(11,036 posts)
6. The third and worst, until C++ came along
Wed Jun 12, 2019, 02:18 PM
Jun 2019

... both designed by committees to be all things to all programming, both fell somewhat short.

unc70

(6,325 posts)
7. I strongly disagree, but then ...
Wed Jun 12, 2019, 04:02 PM
Jun 2019

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.

unc70

(6,325 posts)
9. Was not an imaginary problem
Tue Jun 18, 2019, 09:02 AM
Jun 2019

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.

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