WATBOL is a teaching

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

for the

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural, and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

developed in 1969 at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

. The compiler was a companion product, built under the design philosophy, of Waterloo's earlier, widely used WATFOR teaching compiler. Since programs written by undergraduate students were unlikely to be run more than a few times, after they were successfully written and debugged, the efficiency of the program, once compiled was of secondary importance, compared with giving simpler, clearer error messages, and in simplifying the steps for the student to compile the program. At that time executing a program through the use of commercial compiler was a three-step process. First the Fortran, or COBOL, had to be compiled into

assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence bet ...

, then the assembly language had to be assembled into binary code; finally the compiled and assembled code had to be linked with previously written libraries of subroutines. WATFOR and WATBOL allowed simple programs to be compiled, linked, and executed in a single step. In 1982 Carol Vogt wrote that 230 other institutions were using WATBOL. {{cite news , url = https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/40th/Chronology/printable.shtml , title = Unbundling Computing at The University of Waterloo , publisher =

, author1 = Harold Alkema , author2 = Kenneth McLaughlin , date = 2007 , access-date = 2012-12-18 , archive-date = 2012-09-12 , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120912212607/https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/40th/Chronology/printable.shtml , url-status = dead , quote = The Department of Computing Services (DCS) newsletter noted that there were 420 institutions using WATFIV, 230 using WATBOL, and 370 using DCS's SCRIPT, all software products constructed by UW.

References

Test items Compilers