Data Processing

An antiquated term we don't use now. (May 2002)

Well, what it used to mean was more or less internal business mission-critical programming as particularly exemplified by software for accounting (accounts payable, accounts receivable, employee payroll, etc), and specifically not SystemsProgramming?, algorithm invention, ScientificProgramming?, EmbeddedProgramming?, etc.

It also meant COBOL, mainframes, and lots of tape reels. The old movies usually showed tapes spinning to illustrate a big impressive computer -- the tapes were DataProcessing department financial backups.

Socially, it meant a Systems Analyst at the top of the hierarchy (well, he in turn would doubtless report to some bean counter), who would give flowcharts to coders, who would translate the flowcharts into COBOL -- on paper, of course, because the written COBOL would then be given to secretarial staff to actually enter offline (not online -- onto punched cards), who would return the mistyped program to the coder, who would be instructed by the Analyst to give it to the Systems Operator, who would then actually run it, and several days later return the 5 foot high stack of lineprinter output it generated -- all error messages, of course. Fun fun fun in those old glamorous days.

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