CODASYL is an acronym for "COnference on DAta SYstems Languages". This was a volunteer organization 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.

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.

CODASYL formed a List Processing Task Force in 1965 and this became the Data Base Task Group . In 1971 this group became the Data Description Language Committee .

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.

External links

• Charles Babbage Institute
• historical background
• Citations from CiteSeer