The new COBOL standard
Srividhya Srinivasan · Proceedings of the 17th conference on ACM Annual Computer Science Conference · 1989
COBOL language has undergone three major revisions since its inception in 1959. The first revision came in 1968, the second in 1974, and the third in 1985. These revisions have enabled the language to keep up with the demands of the changing times. The major impact of the new standard is to enhance structured design capabilities of the language and eliminate aspects of the language that gave room for poor design. In this paper we concentrate on the enhancements of the language. We also look into the commonality of features in COBOL with other high-level languages. Several features of the language are tested on simulated problem areas. The programs are then run using three different compilers. These are the IBM COBOL OS/VS 2--4 compiler on an IBM mainframe computer, the VAX COBOL 4. 0 compiler, and the RM COBOL compiler on a micro. the IBM COBOL is based on the 1974 standard and the other two are based on the 1985 standard. This approach enables us to see the extra effort that is needed for the '74 compiler to simulate an '85 compiler feature. This study also measures the program length, program readability, and the speed of execution.