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I don't believe that COBOL was designed for the masses - after all, this was 1959, when there were so few computers and it was believed by some that ultimately

I don't believe that COBOL was designed for the masses - after all, this was 1959, when there were so few computers and it was believed by some that ultimately we would only need one! Also, SQL came out of academia and I don't believe that was for the masses either. I would say however that BASIC was intended for the masses, and as such it was successful. A generation in the UK learnt BASIC on the ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum, BBC Micro etc.

yannis 17y ago
Sadly, when CODASYL committee was formed to develop a programming language ideally suited for business data processing needs they were looking at a language that 'normal operators' could learn and that it would be similar to a human language that is why you get Cobol syntax like: ADD YEARS TO AGE A similar motivation was for SQL. We will give you a database and a query language that anyone can use: SELECT title FROM Book ..... During the early days of computing the thought prevailed - pretty much like now - that it was a matter of 10 years before computers would be able to talk in natural languages and AI was around the corner. But, you are right about BASIC that was my first language as well, quickly dropped for Turbo Pascal which was the sort of the in-thing for a while.