[_yb2s]

> we wouldn't need programmers anymore

This blows my mind, since it seems like a fairly low level/terse language compared to more modern domain specific languages.

But in some sense they were dead right... since (I assume) that what "programming" meant at the time was being able to write raw machine code by hand on paper, and have it work - something few people can or need to do nowadays

[AdieuToLogic]

> This blows my mind, since it seems like a fairly low level/terse language compared to more modern domain specific languages.

I have heard others and myself describe COBOL in many ways, most involving creative expletive phraseology which would make a sailor blush, but "low level/terse language" is a new one to me.

> But in some sense they were dead right... since (I assume) that what "programming" meant at the time was being able to write raw machine code by hand on paper ...

LISP and Fortran predate COBOL IIRC.

[_yb2s]

> LISP and Fortran predate COBOL IIRC

I didn't mean to imply COBOL was anything close to the first programming language, only that I was speculating what 'programming' generally meant within computer culture at the time. I was not around at that time- but I strongly suspect that directly writing machine code and/or assembly was still common practice throughout the entire 1950s, whereas it is far less common nowadays.

I wonder what year Fortran overtook assembly and became the most popular programming language during that era? I suspect it was well after COBOL came out. Surely there is a lag time for any new programming language to become commonplace.

I couldn't find any data on that, but I was able to find that C was released in 1972, but took until 1982 to overtake Fortran, and until 1985 to overtake Pascal. I often forget how slow new things propagated through the culture in pre-internet times.

[AdieuToLogic]

> ... I strongly suspect that directly writing machine code and/or assembly was still common practice throughout the entire 1950s ...

It depends on what type of programming was being done. What we now call "kernels" and "device drivers" were largely authored in assembly languages well into the 80's (depending on the machine).

> I wonder what year Fortran overtook assembly and became the most popular programming language during that era?

Fortran got its name from "formula translator" (or equivalent, depending the source), so it quickly gained traction in the scientific/mathematics domain. As an aside, there are variants of BASIC which have much of the semantic mathematical capabilities of Fortran yet with better I/O support IMHO. None come close in performance AFAIK.

> I suspect it was well after COBOL came out.

COBOL took off in the business world, as it was intended to do, and remains prevalent in at least the insurance and banking industries to this day.

> ... I was able to find that C was released in 1972, but took until 1982 to overtake Fortran, and until 1985 to overtake Pascal.

K&R C was viewed by many as "portable assembly code", with Unix helping it to gain acceptance. ANSII C largely replaced use of K&R C in the late 80's.

Depending on the OS, a small amount of "shim code" remained in assembly (such as interrupt handlers and MMU interaction) up to most of the OS being written in assembly well into the late 80's.

This is all to say that:

> ... directly writing machine code and/or assembly was still common practice throughout the entire 1950s

Is still common practice in OS development, albeit to a lesser degree, if directly writing machine code is omitted.

HTH

[andsoitis]

> LISP and Fortran predate COBOL IIRC.

Correct. Fortran, LISP, and COBOL were invented in ‘57, ‘58, and ‘59, respectively.

[jll29]

> Yes, but the ideas behind COBOL were older still. Flowmatic, COBOL’s predecessor, dates back to 1955, so it really just depends how you count.

Yes. but the ideas behind LISP were older still: Church's typed lambda calulus was conceived in 1936.

[moomin]

Yes, but the ideas behind COBOL were older still. Flowmatic, COBOL’s predecessor, dates back to 1955, so it really just depends how you count.

[thorin]

Saying we don't need "programmers" any more was true when a programmer was someone who used very low level languages such as Assembly and probably had used punched cards in the past etc. Languages like cobol / fortran / plsql gave analysts a chance of designing things on paper and handing off to developers or even doing the development themselves which couldn't have happened in the past. Using something like python these days feels like the kind of thing that would have been thought of as a 4gl in those days for some use cases. However, python also works as a general purpose programming language.

[_yb2s]

That was exactly my point

[electroly]

Do you mean something other than "terse" here? Or are you perhaps thinking of a different language? I cannot possibly imagine that adjective being used to describe COBOL. It is the #1 textbook example of a verbose language--the opposite of terse.

[_yb2s]

What I mean is that it is an attempt to make a high level domain specific language, but is not my modern standards