C018 — Claim Definition¶


Research	R0028 — Prompt Engineering Claims
Run	2026-03-26
Claim	C018

Claim as Received¶

COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) was designed in the late 1950s to let businesspeople express what they wanted in something closer to English.

Claim as Clarified¶

Confirmed. COBOL was designed beginning May 1959 at the Pentagon by the CODASYL committee, based partly on Grace Hopper's FLOW-MATIC. Its architect Jean Sammet wrote: 'It was certainly intended (and expected) that the language could be used by novice programmers and read by management.' COBOL is explicitly an English-like programming language designed for business use.

BLUF¶

Confirmed. COBOL was designed beginning May 1959 at the Pentagon by the CODASYL committee, based partly on Grace Hopper's FLOW-MATIC. Its architect Jean Sammet wrote: 'It was certainly intended (and expected) that the language could be used by novice programmers and read by management.' COBOL is explicitly an English-like programming language designed for business use.

Scope¶

Domain: Prompt engineering and related fields
Timeframe: As of 2026-03-26
Testability: Verifiable through primary sources

Assessment Summary¶

Probability: Almost certain (95-99%)

Confidence: High

Hypothesis outcome: See assessment.md.

[Full assessment in assessment.md.]

Status¶

Field	Value
Date created	2026-03-26
Date completed	2026-03-26
Researcher profile	None provided
Prompt version	Unified Research Standard v1.0-draft
Revisit by	2027-03-26
Revisit trigger	New evidence or source changes