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Talk:COBOL

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The contents of the Picture clause page were merged into COBOL on 8 August 2014. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.
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Current total for lines of COBOL programs

The article (based on 1981 data?) claims that little new code is being written in Cobol. A more current estimate is at 5 billion codelines a year, so perhaps it depends on the definition of "little"... (See for instance http://www.cobolwebler.com/cobolfacts.htm, citing Gartner Group as a source.)

Strange use of second generation language

Where does come your use of second generation language: it is usually reserved for assembly languages. -- Hgfernan 12 May 2004

I agree. COBOL is a third generation language. other examples of third generation languages would be FORTRAN and BASIC. If someone else doesn't correct it soon I may do so. It is a clear mistake. enhandle nov 2004

CoBOL or COBOL?

This isn't a big deal to me, but did anyone else learn it as "CoBOL" (Common Business Oriented Language)? Any old-schoolers out there who learned on punch cards? Woo-hoo! Lightbreather (talk) 00:38, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I only ever saw it written as COBOL, but often wondered how a lower case "o" became an upper case "O" in the acronym. HiLo48 (talk) 02:03, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
@Lightbreather: I think it's just because everything was all caps (sixbit) in the early days... FORTRAN was all-caps too. The good ol' days before that was CONSIDERED SHOUTING & UNCIVIL. Yup, I learned on punch cards, and before that... BASIC on punched tape – the same way Bill Gates learned it. Check out Timeline of DOS operating systems. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:38, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merger of Picture clause

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was merge via silent consensus.

I believe Picture clause should be merged into the COBOL article as it is primarily a COBOL feature. The article is small and will fit easily into this article. EdwardH (talk) 09:07, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. Categories: