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From: Sucky_Programmer on 1 Aug 2010 23:46
Yes, believe it or not they still teach COBOL at my school. I am
totally lost in my class and have no idea what anything is or how
COBOL is structured. The book we are using is terrible at explaining
to a beginner how to program. If anyone can point me in the right
direction in learning COBOL it would be greatly appreciated. The
best free COBOL information I found was from the University of
Limerick but it falls kind of short in teaching a lot of other
things. I have the Learn COBOL in 21 days book but it doesn't teach
me a whole lot. I'm guessing the decrease in demand for COBOL
programmers is the reason why there are practically no good COBOL
books out there. It really kills me when I can't find a good book or
resources to help me. So any help would be appreciated. I am
experienced in C++ but when it comes to COBOL the structure is
difficult to understand.


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From: Louis Krupp on 2 Aug 2010 06:03
On 8/1/2010 9:46 PM, Sucky_Programmer wrote:
> Yes, believe it or not they still teach COBOL at my school. I am
> totally lost in my class and have no idea what anything is or how
> COBOL is structured. The book we are using is terrible at explaining
> to a beginner how to program. If anyone can point me in the right
> direction in learning COBOL it would be greatly appreciated. The
> best free COBOL information I found was from the University of
> Limerick but it falls kind of short in teaching a lot of other
> things. I have the Learn COBOL in 21 days book but it doesn't teach
> me a whole lot. I'm guessing the decrease in demand for COBOL
> programmers is the reason why there are practically no good COBOL
> books out there. It really kills me when I can't find a good book or
> resources to help me. So any help would be appreciated. I am
> experienced in C++ but when it comes to COBOL the structure is
> difficult to understand.

They're forcing you to learn COBOL ... dude, I am so sorry.

OK. It sounds like you have your course textbook, "Learn COBOL in 21
Days," and the University of Limerick tutorial, complete with emulated
green bar paper. Your textbook is "terrible," LCi21D "doesn't teach
[you] a whole lot" and the Ollscoil Luimnigh "falls kind of short in
teaching a lot of other things." (What "other things" doesn't it teach?
I bet it doesn't teach Fortran, but that wasn't what you meant, was
it? Can you be more specific?)

Do you have any questions to which you can't find answers in any of the
above resources, or are you just ranting about COBOL in general?

Ranting is OK. You can rant all you want. It doesn't mean you can't
come back and ask COBOL questions later.

Louis

PS

Consider changing your login name. "Sucky_Programmer" doesn't inspire
confidence. We've all known too many programmers who really did suck.

From: Doug Miller on 2 Aug 2010 07:27
In article <4c563f88$0$14526$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com>, Sucky_Programmer <myspywarehelp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>Yes, believe it or not they still teach COBOL at my school. I am
>totally lost in my class and have no idea what anything is or how
>COBOL is structured. The book we are using is terrible at explaining
>to a beginner how to program.

This doesn't fit with what you write a few sentences later, that you're
"experienced in C++". If you are, then you don't need to learn how to program.
You just need to learn how to program in COBOL.

>If anyone can point me in the right
>direction in learning COBOL it would be greatly appreciated. The
>best free COBOL information I found was from the University of
>Limerick but it falls kind of short in teaching a lot of other
>things. I have the Learn COBOL in 21 days book but it doesn't teach
>me a whole lot.

If there are specific things you're having trouble understanding, then by
posting specific questions here you'll get solid explanations.

>I'm guessing the decrease in demand for COBOL
>programmers is the reason why there are practically no good COBOL
>books out there. It really kills me when I can't find a good book or
>resources to help me. So any help would be appreciated. I am
>experienced in C++ but when it comes to COBOL the structure is
>difficult to understand.

What, specifically, are you having trouble understanding?
From: Anonymous on 2 Aug 2010 08:17
In article <4c563f88$0$14526$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com>,
Sucky_Programmer <myspywarehelp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>Yes, believe it or not they still teach COBOL at my school. I am
>totally lost in my class and have no idea what anything is or how
>COBOL is structured. The book we are using is terrible at explaining
>to a beginner how to program.

How horrid... might you be so kind as to supply the name of the text and
what edition/year of publication you're using? That might prevent some
folks from uselessly supplying something you've already found to be of
little value.

DD

From: HeyBub on 2 Aug 2010 08:35
Sucky_Programmer wrote:
> Yes, believe it or not they still teach COBOL at my school. I am
> totally lost in my class and have no idea what anything is or how
> COBOL is structured. The book we are using is terrible at explaining
> to a beginner how to program. If anyone can point me in the right
> direction in learning COBOL it would be greatly appreciated. The
> best free COBOL information I found was from the University of
> Limerick but it falls kind of short in teaching a lot of other
> things. I have the Learn COBOL in 21 days book but it doesn't teach
> me a whole lot. I'm guessing the decrease in demand for COBOL
> programmers is the reason why there are practically no good COBOL
> books out there. It really kills me when I can't find a good book or
> resources to help me. So any help would be appreciated. I am
> experienced in C++ but when it comes to COBOL the structure is
> difficult to understand.

Back up.

COBOL focuses on the problem to be solved, not the methods. Much "down in
the weeds" stuff is handled automatically by the COBOL compiler.

For example, floating a currency symbol (i.e., to the immediate left of the
amount) is trivial in COBOL - so trivial that COBOL programmers give it no
thought at all. Conversely, floating a currency symbol may require dozens of
lines of code in C or other more primitive languages.

COBOL has a huge set of tools built into the language. Your job is to learn
which tool to use. For example, there is no functional difference between
ADD A TO B GIVING C and COMPUTE C = A + B. Which to use is often stylistic
or convenient, but sometimes necessary. You may see a string of ADD
statements but in the middle of the string is a COMPUTE (!).

Looking further, you'll see that the COMPUTE statement, if converted to ADD,
SUBTRACT, MULTIPLY, and DIVIDE equivalents would fill up the line and run
off on the floor.

Another example that comes to mind is re-arranging stuff from an input
record to an output record. It's one statement in COBOL (MOVE
CORRESPONDING). To do the equivalent of this statement might take hundreds,
if not thousands, of individual operations in C++.

So, then, concentrate on learning to use one tool at a time.

As for there not being any good COBOL books out there, what happened to all
the books before "programmers" started concentrating on flames, emoticons,
imbedded beaver-shots, and 37th degree Wizards?


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