/koh'bol/ (COBOL) A programming language
for simple computations on large amounts of data, designed by
the
CODASYL Committee in April 1960. COBOL's
natural language 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 software rot issues were originally written in COBOL, and this was
responsible for a short-lived increased demand for COBOL
programmers. 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.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.cobol.
["Initial Specifications for a Common Business Oriented
Language" DoD, US GPO, Apr 1960].