Delving the depths of computing, hoping not to get eaten by a wumpus
In June of 1992, my grandfather had an article published in Technical Support magazine proclaiming the death of Cobol. It naturally contains some of the buzzwords of the time, such as fourth-generation programming language (4GL). If you’re not familiar with that term, suffice it to say that the Wikipedia page lists several examples, and Cobol has outlasted most of them.
The word dead would seem to have shades of meaning. Perhaps Cobol is not dead; it may be a Zombie. So, something can be dead and yet not gone? Right! Cobol is an excellent example of that phenomenon. COBOL is probably not alone; there are, I suspect, even some vestiges of Autocoder still extant. Autocoder, for those under 45 who may have never heard the term, was a precursor of COBOL. It is unlikely anyone would argue very forcefully that Autocoder is not dead, yet some remnants of it are probably still with us.
As you might notice, he had a dry wit. There was one time I was able to reflect one of his retorts right back at him, and my grandma was so proud; the student had become the master.
