Depends on what context you took it in. I (silly me) took it to mean all DoD business.
- -teD - Original Message From: Joel Ewing Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 15:16 To: [email protected] Reply To: IBM Mainframe Discussion List Subject: Re: Article on COBOL's "inevitable" return Well, actually the original statement WAS self-apparently "ludicrous" because it stated that U.S. DoD decreed ALL businesses would use COBOL, period, and DoD has never had that much authority. DoD had zero control over businesses that did not work on defense contracts for DoD, and even those with defense contracts could only be constrained to DoD standards in the work they did on behalf of those defense contracts. The use of an unconstrained ALL is what made it ludicrous. The considerable influence of DoD as a major consumer forced the availability of COBOL and later ADA support and set the standards for code written for DoD projects, but DoD is not [yet] omnipotent. JC Ewing On 07/29/2015 12:04 PM, Ted MacNEIL wrote: > Hence NOT ludicrous! > > - > -teD > - > Original Message > From: Vince Coen > Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 12:54 > To: [email protected] > Reply To: IBM Mainframe Discussion List > Subject: Re: Article on COBOL's "inevitable" return > > I think you will find that was a demand (?) that all applications > developed on behalf of the military (well at least the US Navy) had to > be in Cobol - if nothing else to help with standards, maintenance & > migration. > > You have to remember that there was more than one supplier of mainframes > in the 60's such as IBM, Burroughs, Honeywell Univac, Sperry Rand to > name but a few and in Europe OK, the U.K., ICL (ICL), English Electric > and of course the first commercial computer the LEO 3 and these were > also included in UK manuals of the time. > > Check out the copyleft notice that is shown in all Cobol manuals and > should also be in books although not in my one copy of a Cobol book - > Cobol unleashed! > . > Vince > > Cobol since 1963, IT since 1961 (from 1403, 7094, 360/30 et al). > > > > > On 29/07/15 17:20, Paul Gilmartin wrote: >> On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 12:11:56 -0400, Ted MacNEIL wrote: >> >>> Why is it so ludicrous? The USDOD did develop COBOL for some reasom. >>> >> And a generation later, they likewise required ADA. I don't know if that >> was ever countermanded. >> >> I know a programmer who argued that his assignment could not be accomplished >> in ADA. He was given an exemption and allowed to use assembler. >> >>> � Original Message � >>> From: zMan >>> Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 11:28 >>> >>> "*The Department of Defense even decreed that all businesses must run on >>> COBOL in the 1960s.*" >>> A ludicrous assertion. >> -- gil >> > -- Joel C. Ewing, Bentonville, AR [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
