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Quietam_Unum 7 points ago +7 / -0

*COBOL*

COmmon Business-Oriented Language

Edit to add: Back in the 1990s I heard a computer science professor point out that "If you're a student today there is COBOL code running right now that is older than you."

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datagod 4 points ago +4 / -0

Can confirm. For the Y2K prep, I worked on cobol programs written in the late 60's. Beautiful program. Nobody knew what the hell it did. It had 10,000 lines of code and 2000 GOTO statements.

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Quietam_Unum 1 point ago +1 / -0

...and 2000 GOTO statements.

Hoe-lee carp! That must have looked like a bowl of spaghetti!

When I first started CDC still had FORTRAN-66 as the default compiler. My favorite test (it worked) was using a GOTO to RETURN from a subroutine. My favorite obscure error (it took me forever to find the cause) was "Inner loop not outer."

The FORTRAN 77 compiler reined in GOTO pranks a lot...