 The language syntax is English-like and suited for describing complex data formats with a wide set of functions available to verify and manipulate them.In the 1950s and early 1960s, business and scientific users programmed for different computer hardware using different programming languages.Business users were moving from Autocoders via COMTRAN to COBOL, while scientific users programmed in General Interpretive Programme (GIP), Fortran, ALGOL, GEORGE, and others.