COBOL Standardization

The first specifications for COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) were completed, providing a standardized, English-like language for business data processing.

Significance

COBOL became the dominant programming language for enterprise applications on mainframes for decades, ensuring portability and readability at a time when these were rare, thus enabling the widespread development of business software that would later become 'legacy'.

Key facts

Date
1960-04-08
Type
milestone
Location
Washington D.C., USA