œCOBOL AKA Common Business Oriented Language
[related: CODASYL, FACT]
An English-adjacent computer programming syntax created for use in business, finance, and governmental administrative systems. COBOL was developed jointly by the United States government, IBM, and Bell Labs. As of the mid-1950s, it became clear that a lack of standardization in business computing could create a significant drag on the U.S. economy.[1] In May 1959, a steering committee entitled CODASYL was launched by the Pentagon to address the issue. The committee, helmed almost entirely by ill-informed autocrats, gave a panel of industry programmers only three months to solve the problem.[2] Of the various arbitrary and impractical restrictions dictated by the committee was the requirement that any semantic syntax lack case-sensitivity and be entirely legible to non-coders,[3] leaving almost no room to consider deeper levels of activity and function. Revealed five months later (two months past deadline), COBOL was scarcely sufficient for use in the 1960s and quickly ran into issues of obsolescence. Concurrently, the computer industry itself formed a separate committee, led by RCA's Howard Bromberg, and developed FACT, a competing language with more reasonable and forward-thinking parameters. Upon its release, FACT proved to be highly favored by coders and business administrators alike. However, the CODASYL panel made a semi-legal ruling for the standardization of COBOL in any digital communication involving the U.S. government,[4] rendering FACT essentially useless.[5] In the decades following COBOL's enshrinement many aspects of its operating system have shown themselves to be highly problematic, none more than its two digit dating system - an extremely shortsighted configuration responsible for over half-a-trillion dollars of cost related to Y2K/Millennium Rift preparations.
- ↑ At the time, each business was required to generate its own computational language system at the average cost of $500,000-$600,000.
- ↑ 2A flabbergasting deadline that led to a partial walk-out by some top programmers, further diluting the panel's expertise.
- ↑ A quality bearing absolutely no practical use or function.
- ↑ Rumours persist that Ma Bell had vested interest in the success of COBOL as aspects of the language more closely mapped onto its existing systems (thus saving potentially millions in conversion costs), whereas FACT more closely matched IBM's. Unsubstantiated but commonly accepted reports of additional backdoor funding for COBOL by Ma Bell and robust lobbying for the language's acceptance remain un-discredited.
- ↑ Days after the ruling, CODASYL's chair Charles Phillips received an 80lb tombstone in the mail inscribed with the word "COBOL", a delivery later traced directly back to FACT chair Howard Bromberg.