Working Daze by John Zakour and Scott Roberts for November 17, 2011

  1. Chris88
    chireef  almost 13 years ago

    Cobol is a computer language dating back to the 70s its said that it is the root language of Windows

     •  Reply
  2. 20b2bc8e 2ed6 4ec5 af6a 4c6a2049f269
    Tog  almost 13 years ago

    It was all very BASIC back then,

     •  Reply
  3. Cat29
    x_Tech  almost 13 years ago

    Maybe MMM could resurrect the “B” language. You know the one Bell Labs discarded before creating “C”

     •  Reply
  4. Cat29
    x_Tech  almost 13 years ago

    Tried to learn FORTRAN (Formula Translation) but the OUTPUT statements drove me nuts. Then I learned about RatFor (Rational FORTRAN). Nirvana

     •  Reply
  5. Missing large
    vwdualnomand  almost 13 years ago

    cobol is the language of the devil.

     •  Reply
  6. Missing large
    Gokker  almost 13 years ago

    COBOL is the language of finance. Most monetary transactions are run on machines using COBOL. If your young and want a secure future learn COBOL. You’ll be in high demand.

     •  Reply
  7. Zakour signing
    johnzakour Premium Member almost 13 years ago

    I loved machine code in college, so much control. Actually did my first video game in. (Part machine part basic…) BTW, if anybody wants to see some of my non-cartoon and non-sf writing: http://www.baseballticketsonline.org/things-i-wonder/

     •  Reply
  8. Zakour signing
    johnzakour Premium Member almost 13 years ago

    BTW2 back in the day, Cobol wasn’t THAT bad. Okay it was no SQL…

     •  Reply
  9. 5f3a242a feac 42cc b507 b6590d3039f7
    Plods with ...™  almost 13 years ago

    These guys have been around awhile.

     •  Reply
  10. Wile e coyote
    Totalloser Premium Member almost 13 years ago

    COBOL (common business oriented language) is credited to Rear Admiral Grace Hopper. Without it we would not have the rest of the programming languages today. Before COBOL you programmed by wiring a board. There will always be jobs for COBOL programmers

     •  Reply
  11. Georg von rosen   oden som vandringsman  1886  odin  the wanderer
    runar  almost 13 years ago

    With absolutely no knowledge of or training in it, I once got a B+ in a qualification test for COBOL programmers. When asked where I got my COBOL training, I said, “I have a degree in literature”.

     •  Reply
  12. Zakour signing
    johnzakour Premium Member almost 13 years ago

    Grace Hopper came to my college to talk and sort of semi recruit geeks for the air force. She was an interesting woman.

     •  Reply
  13. Text if you d like to meet him
    Yukoneric  almost 13 years ago

    Without Grace there would be no “bug”,

     •  Reply
  14. Ralphziggy
    RalphZIggy  almost 13 years ago

    Grace Hopper conceived of the “compiler”, which would translate human readable instructions into machine language. The language would be machine-independent and so work on different systems. She then developed the FLOW-MATIC language, and was technical consultant to the committee that extended her FLOW-MATIC into COBOL. If you’re a practicing or former COBOL person, have a look at the wikipedia article on Hopper’s FLOW-MATIC with example, very recognizable.

     •  Reply
  15. Protectorate badge
    kageronin  almost 13 years ago

    I thought Cobol was the home planet for the thirteen colonies, before Caprica, Saggitaria, Gemon, etc…

     •  Reply
  16. Zakour signing
    johnzakour Premium Member almost 13 years ago

    one of my finest young geek moments was writing a tic tac toe program in Basic on my Atari 800…

     •  Reply
  17. Missing large
    evangelyne  almost 13 years ago

    No one knew COBOL for awhile there. Then, the possibility of the Millenium Bug loomed large, and suddenly all the old programmers were the thing to have…

     •  Reply
  18. Tintagel
    scottartist creator almost 13 years ago

    And I tend to get left out on days like this I was a nerd, but not a geek. I know languages like Dutch and Spanish and some Welsh, but not the programming kind. I depend on those who do to make computers possible for me to use…

     •  Reply
  19. Georg von rosen   oden som vandringsman  1886  odin  the wanderer
    runar  almost 13 years ago

    My first computer language was BASIC; my second was Intel 8051 Assembler; my third was APL and my fourth was FORTH – nothing with much application in the real world.

     •  Reply
  20. Ubik
    Pharmakeus Ubik  almost 13 years ago

    Many of my less than fine moments were making those Atari 800s.

     •  Reply
  21. Flash
    pschearer Premium Member almost 13 years ago

    The week before I was to attend a lecture by Grace Hopper, I was rummaging thru the desk of a recently retired old-timer at Sperry Univac. (His employee number was 000006.) There I found a pristine copy of a Flow-Matic programming manual which I had Hopper autograph.

    She then said, “Oh, you’’ll be interested in this”, and she rummaged thru her overstuffed briefcase to pull out a copy of a copy of a copy of a mimeograph of her feasibility study for natural-language programming to Univac executives. She told me it was the biggest mistake of her career to include examples in Spanish and French because it delayed the project 6 months when management took the attitude that any computer built in the good-old U. S. of A. was only going to speak good-old American.

    Later I saw an article that told that when she was working with Eckert and Mauchly on one of their early machines (Eniac? Binac?), she was tasked with designing a hardware box to accelerate trigonometric calculations. As a result she has been credited with inventing the SUBROUTINE! That’s like being the inventor of the BRICK! (E&M invented clay, no matter what that silly federal judge ruled about their patent on electronic computing.)

     •  Reply
  22. Tintagel
    scottartist creator almost 13 years ago

    It’s rock-headed attitudes like “English is good enough for ’em” that keep us falling behind the rest of the world. Why bend and adapt when we can just hold our breath until they all give in?

     •  Reply
  23. Missing large
    krisl73  almost 13 years ago

    I like the way COBOL deals with numbers. You have much more control, and you don’t have to mess with floating points. Not so great if you’re doing scientific calculations, but great for accounting!

     •  Reply
  24. Missing large
    rb_bolin Premium Member almost 13 years ago

    After an introductory class that included FORTRAN and COBOL, I transferred from Computer Science to engineering so I would never need to use COBOL again. I had a lot more fun writing software to move flaps and fuel on airplanes that doing payroll.

     •  Reply
  25. Missing large
    robtgordon  almost 13 years ago

    COBOL isn’t elegant but there are about a bazillion lines of COBOL code running on mainframes all over the world. It’s not going away any time soon.

     •  Reply
  26. Missing large
    MissMo  almost 13 years ago

    COBOL was my second language (after BASIC), and I had to program on… punch cards. Taught me the value line numbers. Drop one 600+ card deck, and you’ll never forget to number your code again!

     •  Reply
  27. Dilbert
    dirtking239  almost 13 years ago

    COBOL, like Latin is a dead language

     •  Reply
  28. Spaceship edited
    Cannoneer  almost 13 years ago

    Dude that stuff was back in the dinosuar age when the Wfright brothers were still fooling around with Kitty Hawk. I’ll bet most of you young punks don’t even know what what the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks I’m talking about.

     •  Reply
Sign in to comment

More From Working Daze