COMMON BUSINESS ORIENTED LANGUAGE

Domain	Definition
Computing	COmmon Business Oriented Language /koh'bol/ (COBOL) A programming language for simple computations on large amounts of data, designed by the CODASYL Committee in April 1960. COBOL was probably the most widely used programming language during the 1960s and 1970s, with usage extending into the 1980s. While new COBOL programs are rarely, if ever, written today, many old COBOL programs are still running in dinosaur shops. The natural language style is intended to be largely self-documenting. It introduced the record structure. Many of the major programs that required repair or replacement due to Year 2000 issues were originally written in COBOL, and this was responsible for a short-lived demand for programmers fluent in this "dead language". Major revisions in 1968 (ANS X3.23-1968), 1974 (ANS X3.23-1974) and 1985. For many hackers, COBOL is synonymous with evil, for being a weak, verbose, and flabby language used by card wallopers to do boring mindless things on dinosaur mainframes. Many believe that all COBOL programmers are suits or code grinders, and would deny all knowledge of the language. See also fear and loathing, software rot. Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.cobol. ["Initial Specifications for a Common Business Oriented Language" DoD, US GPO, Apr 1960]. (2000-09-25). Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Language		Translations for "COMMON BUSINESS ORIENTED LANGUAGE"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Danish		COBOL (COBOL). (various references)

Dutch		COBOL (COBOL). (various references)

Finnish		COBOL (COBOL). (various references)

French		COBOL (COBOL). (various references)

German		COmmon Business Oriented Language (COBOL), COBOL (COBOL). (various references)

Greek		COBOL (COBOL). (various references)

Italian		COBOL (COBOL). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		コペルニクス的転回 (a commercial, COBOL, cohort, coma, command, command module, commando, commercial art, commercial base, commercial design, commercial film, commercial jingle, commercial message, commercial package, commercial paper, commercial song, commercialism, Copernican revolution, copolymer, frame in a film or video). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		コボル (COBOL). (various references)

Pig Latin		ommoncay usinessbay orienteday anguagelay

Portuguese		COBOL (COBOL). (various references)

Spanish		COBOL (COBOL). (various references)

Swedish		Cobol (COBOL). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Specialty Definition: COMMON BUSINESS ORIENTED LANGUAGE