She had the idea that programs could be written in a language that was close to English rather than in machine code or languages ( such as assembly language ) close to machine code , which is how it was normally done at that time . COBOL language was based very much on her philosophy . Hopper 's belief that programs should be written in a language that was close to English rather than in machine code or languages close to machine code ( such as assembly language ) was captured in the new business language , and COBOL would go on to be the most ubiquitous business language to date .