COBOL: Limitations and Deficiencies

1980-1985 I resumed full time work for British Telecom International Around 1982 my bosses intended to design a resilient database system based on Tandem Computers Inc hardware (up to 16 processors), with the Guardian multi processor operating system, & TAL = Tandem Assembler Language (more a superset than a simple assembler), all plausible so far, but for top level programming, the only language available was disgusting Cobol !

Meanwhile another manufacturer Stratus Computer Inc was about with multiple M68000 processors, a form of Unix, C, & maybe Ingres relational database. Seemed more promising.

My bosses chose Tandem, then wanted to force me to program in Cobol for it for the next 2 or 3 years ! I explained why Cobol was an awful language, & in particular while compile time constraints on file name opening, didn't allow the easy arbitrary interconnects our database needed to represent; but they were too obstinate to learn, refused to pay attention to the only person in the department with a fresh 2 year old BSc Hons Computers & Cybernetics degree *, & considered their old electrical / electronic engineering degrees, & lack of degrees, as all fit to over ride me & try to force me to program in Cobol for years, so I escaped their foolishness, & got a transfer (to a Unix & later C job).

~1982 to 1985 I was also trying to create a start up Unix company based on my & our own implementations of NSC 32016 CPUs, monitor.c written in C programming language , so no way was I prepared to massively de-skill myself to mess with Cobol for foolish dinosaurs.