COmmon Business Oriented Language

/koh'bol/ (COBOL) A programming language for simple

computations on large amounts of data designed by the

{CODASYL} Committee in April 1960. It is the most widely used

programming language today. The {natural language} style is

intended to be largely self-documenting. It introduced the

{record} structure.

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

X3.23-1974) and 1985.

For many {hackers}, COBOL is synonymous with {evil}, for being

a weak, verbose, and flabby language used by {card wallopers}

to do boring mindless things on {dinosaur} {mainframes}. Many

believe that all COBOL programmers are {suits} or {code

grinders}, and would never admit to having learned the

language. However, as most haven't indeed, their judgement is

somewhat questionable.

See also {fear and loathing}, {software rot}.

{Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.cobol}.

["Initial Specifications for a Common Business Oriented

Language" DoD, US GPO, Apr 1960].

(1997-03-10)