COBOL, IS IT GOING AWAY? :: essays research papers

On whitethorn 28, 1959, the Conference of Data Systems Languages (CODASYL) met for the first time with the idea of developing a universal language for building business applications. That language was COBOL. By 1960, COBOL was commercially ready, and for the next 20 years, more programs were written in COBOL than in both other language. Influenced by FORTRAN, a programming language for the scientific community, and FlowMatic, the theme recognized the growing needs of the business community. They thought that if the scientific programmers were qualifying to get a single language, they could do the same for business. In April 1959, at an informal meeting at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, a blue group of computer manufacturers, large users and academics asked the Department of Defense (DOD) to head the efforts (The worldly concern of COBOL,Brandel). The next month, the DOD called the first meeting of CODASYL, which consisted of eight computer manufacturers and a few large users. The DOD broke CODASYL into several committees, and by June, the ball club member short-range committee was asked to undertake a six-month investigation into developing the language. DOD made COBOL mandatory for all suppliers of computing hardware and computer software who were bidding of defense procurements (Encyclopedia of Comp.Sci.,page350). This pressure resulted in persuading other suppliers to adopt COBOL in like manner and thus the programming language took off.In addition to machine independence, hotshot of the most important requirements of the language was simplicity. The committee wanted the language to be readable by laypeople, which led to the idea of using English (The creation of COBOL,Brandel). In addition, computer manufacturers were trying to develop their commercial COBOL compilers while COBOLs specifications were being defined (Creation of COBOL,Brandel). A complete specification was finished in just six months. That was in December 1959. In 1974, COBOL officially changed to four-digit determine fields, but that change obviously didnt catch on counterbalance away. The COBOL creators played a huge part in the famous Y2K conundrum because of the use of two-digit year fields they used and did not fix in time. This huge problem cost many companies millions and they say that many of these companies depart not solve the problem within their own business until in time as late as 2008.The Y2K problem effected the world as a whole and showed COBOLs impact globally. Analyst firm Gartner estimates that applications managing rough 85 percent of the worlds business data are written in COBOL.