When applying archaeology to the intangible there can be some amazing results that can strain credulity. Try this on for size:<\/p>\n
Today, COBOL is no longer the language of choice for computer programmers. It does, however, retain a small but important role in some software. [COBOL Cowboys<\/strong><\/em> founder Bill] Hinshaw estimates there are 800 billion<\/strong> lines of COBOL running today. [“<\/em>The critical computer systems still relying on decades-old code<\/a>,” Matthew Sparkes, <\/em>NewScientist<\/strong> (8 March 2025, paywall)]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Worse yet, billion’s<\/em> not even well defined in this context; the Wikipedia<\/strong><\/em> page for billion<\/a> left me feeling like I needed a secret decoder ring, or membership in the Masonic Temple. I particularly like the references to milion<\/em>[1]<\/a><\/sup> in that page, as the milion page didn’t seem relevant. Or is this a systematic misspelling?<\/p>\n
But that’s all irrelevant; we can all agree that 800 billion is a big number when counting lines of code, and I have my doubts that so many lines of code, in all the computer languages of the world, have been written by the human hand.<\/p>\n
For one thing, the hospitals would be overrun by emergency patients suffering from psychoses, neuroses, neck injuries, and carpal tunnel.<\/p>\n
I checked the next issue<\/a> of NS<\/strong><\/em> but saw neither corrections nor errata nor complaints in the letters column.<\/p>\n
This reminds me of the Soviet programmer a recruiter tried to sell to my employer of the moment decades ago. He made a claim as to how much code he’d written, and I think, to satisfy the claim, we calculated he’d have to write 10,000 lines per day for … his entire life? No weekends off. It was crazy.<\/p>\n
So I think I’ll just be boggled.<\/p>\n
\n<\/a>1<\/sup> Nor had I ever encountered the word before, but there is such a word<\/a>, presumably Latin or of Latin origin:<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Milion<\/b>\u00a0(Ancient Greek<\/a>:\u00a0\u039c\u03af\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd<\/span>\u00a0or\u00a0\u039c\u03af\u03bb\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0M\u00edlion<\/i>;\u00a0Turkish<\/a>:\u00a0Milyon ta\u015f\u0131<\/i>) was a marker from which all distances across the\u00a0Roman Empire<\/a>\u00a0were measured. Erected by\u00a0Septimius Severus<\/a>\u00a0in the 3rd century AD in the city of\u00a0Byzantium<\/a>, it became the zero-mile marker for the empire upon the re-founding of the city as Constantinople in 330 AD. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Its relevance to billion<\/em>, however, is obscure to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When applying archaeology to the intangible there can be some amazing results that can strain credulity. Try this on for size: Today, COBOL is no longer the language of choice for computer programmers. It does, however, retain a small but important role in some software. [COBOL Cowboys founder Bill] Hinshaw \u2026 Continue reading