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COBOL Celebrates 50 Years

oranghutan writes "The language used to power most of the world's ATMs, COBOL, is turning 50. It also runs about 75 per cent of the world's business applications, so COBOL should be celebrated for making it to half a century. In cricketing terms, that's a good knock. The author says: 'COBOL's fate was decided during a meeting of the Short Range Committee, the organization responsible for submitting the first version of the language in 1959. The meeting was convened after a meeting at the Pentagon first laid down the guidelines for the language. Half a century later, Micro Focus published research which showed people still use COBOL at least 10 times throughout the course of an average working day in Australia. Only 18 per cent of those surveyed, however, had ever actually heard of COBOL.'"

2 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. 75% of apps? Shaa, right! by Adeptus_Luminati · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "It also runs about 75 per cent of the world's business applications"

    Gee, I didn't know Windows Apps were coded in COBOL.

    Come on, 75% is a HIGHLY dubious claim. Where's the source / proof / evidence? Where I work, we have nearly 200 business apps and I'm pretty sure less than 2% of business apps were made in COBOL - possibly even 0%.

    Adeptus

    --
    No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
  2. Lack of knowledge by zoomshorts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Most businesses did not see any need to port mainframe stuff to WinDoze.
    COBOL is solid. WinDoze is flakey. RM COBOL extended COBOL to modern
    programmers. If it isn't broke, you don't 'fix' it.

    Get a grip, and learn. I suggest going back to school. Just my opinion
    though.

    "Come on, 75% is a HIGHLY dubious claim. Where's the source / proof / evidence? Where I work, we have nearly 200 business apps and I'm pretty sure less than 2% of business apps were made in COBOL - possibly even 0%."

    I suggest YOU go to work for any major business and work on their accounting software. Highly dubious? Hardly. Your business 'Apps' are probably front ends for a real language on a mainframe.
    Visual this or that.