I first learned to program computers in 1966 when I entered college and studied COBOL and FORTRAN, (both of these languages are still used by the way. They still use them because they operate much faster than newer languages in running their programs.
This is because computer languages like COBOL and Fortran are closer to machine language (which basically means zeros and 1s.
And the further you get away from machine language the longer computer languages take to do anything.
Because of this newer languages are relatively much slower than older computer languages.
However, at the speed computers now operate for most home applications this doesn't matter. However, for other business or scientific applications with massive data and mathematic calculations it does matter and this is why languages like Fortran and COBOL are both still used by scientists and in business applications as well worldwide.
COBOL is a business language and FORTRAN literally means Formula Translation and FORTRAN always reminded me of doing Algebra problems because of all the formulas contained in the programming.
In the last 10 years or so I met a COBOL programmer from India who worked in Sacramento.
He was telling me how much faster programs run in COBOL than in most other newer computer languages still.
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