Computer Science 1621
Structure of Programming Languages
Project 1
COBOL
Kevin Barsotti
Joseph Burdis
Daniel Devine
09.15.2003
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Structure of Programming Language Project 1 | CS 1621, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Computer Science
Material Type: Project; Class: STRUCTURE PROGRAMMING LANGS; Subject: Computer Science; University: University of Pittsburgh; Term: Fall 2003;
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Computer Science 1621
Structure of Programming Languages
Project 1
COBOL
Kevin Barsotti Joseph Burdis Daniel Devine
09.15.
COBOL is a programming language designed with ease of comprehension and portability, in more than one sense, in mind. COBOL, or Common Business Oriented Language, as it exists today, is the result of the efforts of multiple entities. In 1960, a group of professional, governmental, and academic computer scientists called the Conference on Data Systems Language (CODASYL), at the behest of the Department of Defense (DOD), began work on a language that would allow a program to be created on one computer system, then installed on another computer system down the line without having to be reprogrammed, unlike existing processor-specific assembly languages. American National Standard COBOL (ANS-COBOL) was standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in 1970 and was the first, but not the last, evolution of the standard definition of the COBOL language. The need to integrate new features, replace or eliminate faulty prior features, lead the ANSI to draft three further COBOL standards in intervening years; one in 1974, another in 1985, and yet another in
- COBOL was, at the time of its inception, an innovative and ubiquitous software application, and this fueled its ongoing vitality. The intention in the creation COBOL was ultimately one of portability, both across systems and from one programmer to the next. While the honor of being the first high-level language goes to FORTRAN, COBOL was quick on its heels and is applicable in a wider variety of practical situations. Its initial claims of cross-platform portability were met with some skepticism, as COBOL required amounts of memory that were prohibitive for smaller computing systems. While not a truly cross-platform portable language, as minor reprogramming was required when programs were ported to other platforms, COBOL still alleviated the need
flow of COBOL source code and ensure that the application would perform its intended function. Given a relatively small amount of further insight into programming, far less than would be required to make use of an algorithmic language, the aforementioned accountants and managers could even alter COBOL applications, or create their own. Among the means by which COBOL is been made easy to comprehend is the use of clearly defined division headers that defined the four necessary components of the COBOL language. These divisions; identification, environment, data, and procedure, subdivide the program so that someone observing the source code can rapidly assimilate vital details about the program. Additional headings indicate placement for such things as physical input/output and file input/output. The identification division provides the basic identifying data of the application, such as a program's name. Other optional data that can be stored in the identification division include the program's author and the last modified date. The environment division is rarely utilized for its original purpose in modern COBOL. Intended to indicate the equipment upon which the program will run, and which features of this equipment the program will be taking advantage of, file control information is what is now typically, and solely, placed within the environment division. The data and procedure divisions contain, by and large, what would be comparable to variables and functions in an algorithmic language. Information within the data division defines, unsurprisingly, the data that will be manipulated by the program. The procedure division is by and large the most intensive division in the majority of COBOL programs, as it outlines all manipulations to be performed on the data defined in the prior division, compromising the whole of the program's logic.
Inter-program communication and calling is among the most powerful features of COBOL. A simple procedure call can run another program, written in COBOL or another language, as a subprogram of the calling program, passing it arguments based upon the calling procedure’s parameters. This permits a great degree of modularity, where multiple individual programs, COBOL or otherwise, can be utilized in a cascading series of calls, one invoked as a subprogram of another, to perform specialized functions upon a set of data that is passed along from one separate program. In addition to its usefulness, the simplicity of procedure-handled subroutine calls made such functionality much more common than it had been when assembler code was the norm. This sort of modularity may also have been a starting point for programming efforts that later comprised the object-oriented paradigm. While possessing the strengths of modularity, portability, and comprehensibility, COBOL suffers from a few notable drawbacks that make it unsuitable as a general- purpose language. As its naming scheme indicates, COBOL is designed for business applications. “Business data processing is characterized by the processing of many files, used repeatedly, requiring relatively few calculations and many output reports.”(Feingold, 60) As a result, calculation-intensive applications, such as algorithmic sorts and searches, encryption, and similar projects would be better suited towards another language. While the infrastructure for mathematical and logical processing is present, it would be unwise to use COBOL for algorithms with a great degree of such data manipulations. COBOL is not advised for use with algebraically intense programs,
applications using the language. This is a speed issue that no amount of faster hardware can overcome. Ultimately COBOL fulfills a niche that was needed at the time of its inception, but may have become outmoded in current software design models. The focus away from natural language source interpretation in modern software engineering, and towards graphical applications with mathematics-intensive components has left COBOL unable to cope in a modern software development environment. Its ubiquitous nature in the earlier eras of computing has resulted in a need to learn it, in large, for purposes of maintenance and upgrade of legacy software applications. Modern applications development focuses on modern algorithmic languages almost exclusively. COBOL is not dead, however, but merely evolving. Further standards of COBOL have increased its functionality and power, and a language based upon COBOL, Object- Oriented COBOL, has begun to take root to solve COBOL’s lack of capacity to conform to widespread programming paradigms. While the language, in its basic form in intent, may have become outmoded, its evolutions and influences live on to this day and maintain its vitality. No language lasts forever, but COBOL’s contributions to recent languages, language ideals, and applications will insure that its heritage will carry on long after its perceived usefulness is largely at an end.
Bibliography
1. Fundamentals of COBOL Programming , Carl Feingold, © 1969, 1973 Wm. C. Brown Company Publishers. 2. Programming Standard COBOL, Winchung A. Chai and Henry W. Chai, © 1976 Academic Press, Incorporated. 3. COBOL Unleashed, Jon Wessler, et al., © 1998 Sams Publishing, Inc.