> And CPL before that (born in 1963). Yes, COBOL has roots in FLOW-MATIC (mostly, with a light dusting of COM-TRAN),
"FACT is fiction"? (Honeywell) Did the CODASYL SRC committee get anything from 9PAC? JOVIAL? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on behalf of Timothy Sipples [[email protected]] Sent: Monday, April 27, 2020 4:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: COBOL and C Charles Mills wrote: >Funny, isn’t it? >COBOL (née 1959) is 61 years old. It’s a very old language. >C (née 1972) is 48 years old. It’s a modern language. These dates aren't actually comparable. In 1959 the Short Range Committee first met -- on May 28 and 29, 1959, at the Pentagon -- and did a lot of work over the next few months. However, the COBOL specifications weren't formally approved until January 8, 1960 (with GPO printing thereafter). There was never any "COBOL 59." The first COBOL was "COBOL 60." And it wasn't until August 17, 1960, that the first COBOL program ran (on a RCA 501).(*) In other words, 1959 is the "some people got together and came up with an idea for a new programming language" date, analogous to celebrating your birthday on the date when your parents first met. For sure the first C program ran at least as early as 1972, probably in 1971, and perhaps even earlier. Version 2 Unix was released on June 12, 1972, and included a C compiler. Or, in other words, 1972 is when the first C compiler shipped outside Bell Labs. That's quite a different historical event, not directly comparable to committee meetings. Then there are the complexities associated with the fact that C comes after B, and there was a B programming language -- and BCPL before that. And CPL before that (born in 1963). Yes, COBOL has roots in FLOW-MATIC (mostly, with a light dusting of COM-TRAN), but...it's complicated. And surely we shouldn't be hanging our hat on somebody deciding in circa 1971 to advance to the next letter of the alphabet in what others might have called "B '72"? Anyway, if somebody wants to claim that a time difference is meaningful, isn't it important at least to get the birth dates right? (*) And the compilers remained practically unusable for a couple years thereafter. - - - - - - - - - - Timothy Sipples I.T. Architect Executive Digital Asset & Other Industry Solutions IBM Z & LinuxONE - - - - - - - - - - E-Mail: [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
