COBOL is one of the oldest programming languages, primarily designed by Grace Hopper, who is commonly referred to as "the mother of the COBOL language." Created in 1959, its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance and administrative systems for companies and governments. The language continues to evolve, as the COBOL 2002 standard includes support for object-oriented programming and other modern language features. The COBOL specification was created by a committee of researchers from private industry, universities and government that was formed in May of 1959 to recommend a short-range approach to a common business language. One of the most established programming languages around, COBOL has withstood the test of time. IBM estimates that more than 200 billion lines of COBOL code are still being used across industries such as banking, insurance and retail. Developed in conjunction with Micro Focus, this eWEEK slide show looks at why the long-lasting programming language remains popular even today.
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