Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL)
Acronym for common business oriented language. Developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, COBOL is the second-oldest high-level programming language (FORTRAN is the oldest). It is particularly popular for business applications that run on large computers.
COBOL is a wordy language; programs written in COBOL tend to be much longer than the same programs written in other languages. This can be annoying when you program in COBOL, but the wordiness makes it easy to understand programs because everything is spelled out. Although disparaged by many programmers for being outdated, COBOL is still the most widely used programming language in the world.
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- COCOMO
Short for Constructive Cost Model, a method for evaluating and/or estimating the cost of softwaredevelopment. There are three levels in the COCOMO hierarchy: Basic COCOMO: computes software development effort and cost as a function of program size expressed in estimated DSIs. There are three modes within Basic COCOMO: Organic Mode: Development projects typically are uncomplicated […]
- CODASYL
Short for Conference on Data Systems Languages, and pronounced code-a-sill, an organization founded in 1957 by the U.S. Department of Defense. Its mission was to develop computer programming languages. CODASYL was responsible for developing COBOL. The organization is no longer extant, but the term CODASYL is still used sometimes to refer to COBOL.
- COE
Short for common operating environment. A COE specifies a common IT architecture within an organization and promotes interoperability and cross-platform capabilities among an organization’s devices. All workstations within an organization run the same software and use the same interfaces so that its devices are standardized and information presentation and platform interfaces are consistent throughout the […]
- COLD
Acronym for Computer Output to Laser Disk.The storage of data on optical disk, such as CD-ROMs. Storing large volumes of data on laser disk, as opposed to microfiche or microfilm, lets the user access and search this information on a computer, avoid the duplication and security costs of protecting physical documents or film, and more […]
- COM
(1) In DOS systems, the name of a serial communications port. DOS supports four serial ports: COM1, COM2, COM3, and COM4. However, most software uses system interrupts to access the serial ports, and there are only two IRQ lines reserved. This means that the four COM ports share the same two IRQ lines. Typically, COM1 […]