COBOL

The business language of 1959, English-like by design, still processing the world's payroll and banking decades later.

Core Principles & Analysis

• The CODASYL committee designed it in 1959 to be readable by managers, not just programmers.
• Grace Hopper's FLOW-MATIC was its direct ancestor.
• An estimated 200 billion lines still run, mostly in banking and government systems.