Cobol

Delboy79

Ive Been told i will need a good knowledge of COBOL in order to move department with my current employer.
Does any of you guys know of any good structured text books or courses in the south of ireland which could enable me to learn this language. I would appreicaite any information
Thanks

bonkey

If you know coding already, then COBOL will be of little difficulty to you.

First up....before even thinking about books etc. find out what flavour of COBOL you'll be working with.

COBOL-1 & COBOL-92 would be the main two standards, but there are other more modern variants (e.g. object-oriented COBOL and some form of Visual COBOL if memory serves) which may be more / less relevant.

jc

bonkey

Errr...

COBOL 85, or COBOL2. Not COBOL 92.

/me is getting his standards confused. 92 is the SQL ANSI standard.

jc

Delboy79

Thanks

fractal

Delboy,

Theres a very basic but straightforward COBOL course at the UL Computer Systems site:

http://www.csis.ul.ie/COBOL/Course/Default.htm

Easy to folow and will get you up to speed on the basics.. Twas written for use with the Microfocus Netexpress 4.0 compiler but I presume there isnt a _gigantic_ difference between different cobol versions?

ZENER

You could try "Teach yourself Cobol in 21 days" I'm using this as an introduction to cobol 85. The listings are for Microfocus or AcuCobol compilers.

It's great for an absolute beginner.
May be a bit basic for you, but there are many more available on Amazon.co.uk to look at.

Cheers

Tinky

zekiel

In fairness is there really a point in learning cobol. How many systems today still run cobol programs today, is it not a dying or basically dead language and so id say move on to another language such as Java or c++.

Auburn

In fairness is there really a point in learning cobol. How many systems today still run cobol programs today, is it not a dying or basically dead language and so id say move on to another language such as Java or c++.

And what about legacy systems??

watty

Real programmers can write ForTran programs in any new language in a few days....

Seriously though:
* if you just learn a Programming Language, you may never be a Programmer.

* If you learn programming, then any specific "new" language is a few days study.

* The biggest time consumer is not learning an extra language but which are the "right" libraries to use (and how) and APIs etc.

Programming for Win32 for instance instead of Industrial Controllers or DOS, the time consuming thing is not at all C#, C++, VB6, Delphi or Modula-2, but the APIs and how to do windows stuff. Now I can do a DLL in Modula-2, C++, VB or C# and call it from VB6, C++, Modula-2 or C#

A complex algorithm with no GUI works best in Modula-2

C++ and C# are invaluable for using existing C. C++ or C# libraries or code, which then can be "wrapped" as a DLL

The GUI and ODBC/SQL is easiest done in VB6 or Delphi.

Passing A string from VB to a DLL is a bit tricky, you have to assign it to a constant as long as the result might be as VB strings are not C++ / Modula-2 strings, but dynamic arrays.

Forget once and "BANG"!

Yes there is good demand for those who can work on existing legacy systems (maybe even to recode Cobal OS/2 as C# on net framework). A special talent I have not got.

Delboy79

Thanks for all the information guys.