In The World Of Computing, What Has Lasted 50 Years?

Not much lasts for very long in computing, as it is quickly improved upon, and then the original designs are forgotten quickly. One thing that has lasted, and, is in no way ready to be retired is the COBOL language.

Pioneered by, among others, Admiral Grace Hopper of the U.S. Navy, COBOL is in use on much of the big iron in use today. Simply because we don’t see mainframes does not mean they are not present, as this story from  ITWire lets us know.

COBOL, the ubiquitous computer language that emerged at around the same time as the IT industry itself, has just turned 50 and, according to enterprise applications management company, Micro Focus, despite its age, COBOL still plays a pivotal role in running most of the world’s businesses and public services, from powering almost all global ATM transactions, running nearly three quarters of the world’s business applications, and booking hundreds of holidays every single day.

In May this year, Micro Focus published research, which it reported. showed that people still use COBOL at least 10 times throughout the course of an average working day, but despite using the technology so often, only 18 per cent of those surveyed had ever actually heard of COBOL, although equivalent research conducted by the company in the US showed Americans rely on COBOL even more, using it at least 13 times per day.

Micro Focus CTO, Stuart McGill says the name COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language) was agreed during a meeting of the Short Range Committee, the organisation responsible for submitting the first version of the language, on the 18th of September 1959, following a meeting at the Pentagon where guidelines for COBOL were first laid down.

“Despite its age, COBOL still plays a pivotal role in running most of the world’s businesses and public services, from powering almost all global ATM transactions, running nearly three quarters of the world’s business applications, and booking hundreds of holidays every single day. There is understood to be over 200 billion lines of COBOL code in existence, with hundreds more being created every single day.

Though many people become programmers today with no knowledge of COBOL, it is possible to become a maintenance programmer, and have a good, though possibly boring job, for quite some time, as COBOL appears  not the least bit threatened by a C++ or Java takeover, any time soon.

Learning COBOL is probably one of the easier things that can be done, as it is perhaps the very closest programming language to natural speech.

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