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Re: Server-side COBOL
Actually server-side COBOL in CICS (late 1970's) worked more or less like Java Servlets, kinda sorta.A stream of data came in from the terminal. This consisted of data from form fields, along with a function-key code and something in a hidden attribute which indicated which procedure to call. The procedure would take the data, make calls to the database and then format a response to send back to the terminal, including a hidden attribute that indicated the next procedure.Thousands of terminals could be serviced by one process on one mainframe. There was no multi-threading (multi-programming, yes, batch programs could be running on the same machine at the same time, but "threads" (lightweight processes within a process) were still an exotic concept). For each request, a procedure came in, did its work quickly and ended. An infinite loop in the procedure would hold up the whole system.There wasn't really any advantage in using COBOL instead of Assembler, if you knew your way around the instruction set.