I knew a woman whose sole job was maintaining COBOL servers for IBM. She did it for close to 20 years before they updated those servers a few years ago. Not even her supervisor knew how to check her work. lol
It naturally contains some of the buzzwords of the time, such as fourth-generation programming language (4GL). If you’re not familiar with that term, suffice it to say that the Wikipedia page lists several examples, and Cobol has outlasted most of them.
Lots of 3GL outlived most 4GL languages, C, C++, C# Java, Ruby, Python, and even newer languages like Rust and Go are 3GL. In fact so did plenty of 2GL (assembly languages).
Programming language generations are about usage and level of abstraction not about being obsolete.
Is Forth a 4GL?
Badum tish. (Sorry)
Unfortunately, despite its name, it’s a Thirth Generation Programming Language (you asked for it).
I know. I just couldn’t resist the allure of the dad pun.
And COBOL is listed as third-generation on Wikipedia, too.
I now remember reading about this concept of generations in a book about Ada, it seemed fascinating then but turned out to not be as good as expected 🥲
Also, Unix Shell is listed as 4GL example. There are SPSS, MATLAB, R, and Wolphram Alpha in the same list of examples, that kind of shows where 4GL went today.
Brings back memories of using PROIV
I was part of a team that was trained in COBOL to help update code in time for Y2K. We’ve been headhunted by the same company several times in the last ten years to further update and maintain the same code, originally written in the mid-1970s. I’m now 56, and I suspect that code base will live at least as long as I do.
My great uncle worked in cobol on a Ge225 for the us army and then several banks. To program they had to print them out on punch cards. Once you loaded the programs they then had to set up a completely different algorithm for each bank as it sent in data because nothing had been standardized and they each had their own system. Once you did set up the banks’ approved formulas in their module of code, this computer could do operations on the data coming in over a connection. These computers were already on a phone line to the banks way before Internet was a concept!
Here’s a fun manual from the successor called the GE 235. http://s3data.computerhistory.org/brochures/ge.235.1964.102646091.pdf
I wrote COBOL years ago.
Ironically I just picked up a book from the 80s on programming COBOL to do as a fun challenge (assuming I ever get started)
