From COBOL to .Net

illdoit2morrow

Hello all,

I'm working in the financial sevices sector in a COBOL background for approx 10 years. The company i am with for the last 5+ years have recently decided to buy a new software package to assist with the business. The COBOL platform 'just couldn't handle todays needs' was the reason why.

I've had to start moving over to the .Net environment. I am finding it quiet difficult to grasp, there are a number of reasons for this, firstly, we have no permanent resouce with a .Net skillset. I find alot of the stuff on the web just doesn't answer my particular question. And finally , it's all a bit daunting, there seems to be some much resources out there, i'm not sure where to begin properly.

I've asked management to get a contractor for a while. What i hope this might achieve is give managment a realsitic view of how good/bad we are currently. It would also help to be able to swing around and ask someone...'how the Fook do i do this?'. And lastly, they could provide QA of work done..this is a biggie, no point of developeing bad habits without even knowing.

Any pointers or tips would be much appreciated.

seithon

While your coding background is probably pretty strong I'm guessing OO programming is perhaps new to you?
Either way I'm a student learning at the moment and I found this book > http://www.headfirstlabs.com/books/hfcsharp/ to be invaluable, its not really a reference guide in as much as a teach yourself book but it is filled with enough useful information to get you off the ground.

As for reference when I want to know what does what I use the MSDN database you can find it here > http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa719441(VS.71).aspx

I hope this help you Feel free to PM me if you want.

Evil Phil

You could ask management to provide some cross over training for you.

unknownlegend

illdoit2morrow wrote: »

Hello all,

I'm working in the financial sevices sector in a COBOL background for approx 10 years. The company i am with for the last 5+ years have recently decided to buy a new software package to assist with the business. The COBOL platform 'just couldn't handle todays needs' was the reason why.

I've had to start moving over to the .Net environment. I am finding it quiet difficult to grasp, there are a number of reasons for this, firstly, we have no permanent resouce with a .Net skillset. I find alot of the stuff on the web just doesn't answer my particular question. And finally , it's all a bit daunting, there seems to be some much resources out there, i'm not sure where to begin properly.

I've asked management to get a contractor for a while. What i hope this might achieve is give managment a realsitic view of how good/bad we are currently. It would also help to be able to swing around and ask someone...'how the Fook do i do this?'. And lastly, they could provide QA of work done..this is a biggie, no point of developeing bad habits without even knowing.

Any pointers or tips would be much appreciated.

Hi There,

I'm in the process of migrating/replatforming a very large Mainframe COBOL office system into a .NET Development environment (specifically csharp). This was done by wrapping the existing cobol application code in a .net 'framework' application which basically transported the existing system from an IBM/zOS environment to a windows/server environment. A new database back end in SQL server was also developed in place of the old IMS system. Of course this whole thing was an infrastructural nightmare! But it gives huge scope for performance improvements, a new language to develop in, powershell/sql server/*.net opportunities... with the right long term design implementations of course

You should look into MicroFocus - they are involved in "Cobol .NET" and have their own compiler and IDE but also plugins for the visual studio environment. PM me if you have any specific questions about this area.

Thanks