CODASYL (often spelt Codasyl) is an acronym for "COnference on DAta SYstems Languages". This was a IT industry consortium formed in 1959 to guide the development of a standard programming language that could be used on many computers. This effort led to the development of COBOL. Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial letter or letters of words, such as NATO and XHTML, and are pronounced in a way that is distinct from the full pronunciation of what the letters stand for. ... Categories: Information technology ... 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A programming language or computer language is a standardized communication technique for expressing instructions to a computer. ... COBOL is a third-generation programming language. ...

CODASYL's members were individuals from industry and government involved in data processing activity. Its larger goal was to promote more effective data systems analysis, design, and implementation. The organization worked on various languages over the years but never actually standardized one. The standardization process was left to ANSI. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private, non-profit standards organization that produces industrial standards in the United States. ...

In 1965 CODASYL formed a List Processing Task Force. This group was chartered to develop COBOL language extensions for processing collections of records; the name arose because Charles Bachman's IDS system (which was the main technical input to the project) managed relationships between records using chains of pointers. In 1967 the group renamed itself the Data Base Task Group, and its first report in January 1968 was entitled COBOL extensions to handle data bases. In october 1969 the DBTG published its first language specifications for the network database model which became generally known as the Codasyl Data Model. This specification in fact defined several separate languages: a data description language (DDL) to define the schema of the database, another DDL to create one or more subschemas defining application views of the database; and a data manipulation language (DML) defining verbs for embedding in the COBOL programming language to request and update data in the database. Although the work was focused on COBOL, the idea of a host-language independent database was starting to emerge, prompted by IBM's advocacy of PL/I as a COBOL replacement. 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... Charles W. Bachman is a prominent computer scientist, particularly in the area of databases. ... IDS is a three-letter abbreviation with multiple meanings, including: Iain Duncan Smith (a British politician) International and Diplomat Sales Intrusion-detection system Intergrated Defense Systems is a division of the Boeing Company Interdictor/Strike; used to describe a fighter aircraft role Tasmanian University Internet Developers Society, University of Tasmania... 1967 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... 1969 was a common year starting on Wednesday For other uses, see Number 1969. ... The network model is a database model conceived as a more flexible alternative to the hierarchical model. ... The word schema comes from the Greek word σχήμα (skhēma) that means shape or more generally plan. ... International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or colloquially, Big Blue) NYSE: IBM (incorporated June 15, 1911, in operation since 1888) is headquartered in Armonk, NY, USA. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, and services. ... PL/I (Programming Language One, pronounced pee el one) is an imperative computer programming language designed for scientific, engineering, and business applications. ...

In 1971, largely in response to the need for programming language independence, the work was reorganized: development of the Data Description Language was continued by the Data Description Language Committee, while the COBOL DML was taken over by the COBOL language committee. With hindsight, this split had unfortunate consequences. The two groups never quite managed to synchronize their specifications, leaving vendors to patch up the differences. The inevitable consequence was a lack of interoperability among implementations. 1971 is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ...

A number of vendors implemented database products conforming (roughly) to the DBTG specifications: the most well-known implementations were Honeywell's Integrated Data Store (IDS/2), B.F._Goodrich's Integrated Database Management System IDMS, and Univac's DMS-1100. Honeywell (NYSE: HON) is a major American multinational corporation that produces electronic control systems and automation equipment. ... Categories: Companies traded on NYSE | Stub | Aerospace manufacturing companies | Fortune 500 companies | Companies based in North Carolina ... IDMS (Integrated Database Management System) is a (network) CODASYL database management system first developed at B.F. Goodrich and later marketed by Cullinane Database Systems (renamed Cullinet in 1983). ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

Some of the CODASYL committees continue their work today, but CODASYL itself no longer exists. The records of CODASYL were donated to the Charles Babbage Institute and may be found at their website. The Charles Babbage Institute (also titled the Center for the History of Information Technology) is a research center specializing in the history of information technology, particularly early computers. ...

Sources

The Codasyl Approach to Data Base Management. T. William Olle. Wiley, 1978. ISBN 0471995797.

The Codasyl Model. J. S. Knowles and D. M. R. Bell, in Databases - Role and Structure, ed. P. M. Stocker, P. M. D. Gray, and M. P. Atkinson, CUP, 1984. ISBN 0521254302

External links

• Charles Babbage Institute
• historical background
• Citations from CiteSeer