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From: Nomen Nescio on 2 Aug 2010 09:21
What platform(s) are you programming on?

See if you can find a older IBM COBOL manuals, perhaps on bitsavers.org.
The older manuals generally did a better job of explaining concepts and
since IBM is pretty good about upward compatability you won't find a whole
lot in those old manuals that's not still valid today. IBM breaks up their
language manuals as Programmer's Guide, User Guide, and Reference. The
Programmer's Guide shows you how to set up JCL to run jobs and how to set
the compiler options. The User Guide shows you how to accomplish high-level
tasks like a cookbook would do. The Reference explains each individual
keyword and the exact syntax of statements. If you can find COBOL manuals
from the 1970s and 1980s (look for IBM System/370 doc) that may be a good
start. Most of us learned from the manuals in the old days, there weren't
really any classes or textbooks and the manuals were clear and well laid
out. Things today are alot more complicated. You don't need to understand
each and every possible feature or keyword to be a good COBOL coder, but
you should know that they exist and how to find things you need, so when
you do need them you have them. There isn't any point in using esoteric
methods, simple is usually the best.

From: James Gavan on 2 Aug 2010 16:08
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.
>
>
As others have said, be a bit more specific about your problems. Why
somebody trained in C++ would be doing COBOL beats me. First thing off,
do what I just did, google on "Sample COBOL Code", it only gives you 1.8
million hits in 29 seconds !

You apparently liked the U of Limerick info - but you still have
problems - post one of Michael Coughlan's examples here and tell us what
you find difficult to follow. I recall he has a program showing printing
- BUT - he writes the info to a disk file and then separately you print
the disk file. COBOL was OK for printing with DOS but it needs
intermediary software to print under Windows.

You're right. Currently out of vogue, nobody is going to sit down and
write a book on COBOL. If you can get it through amazon.com, get a copy
of Thane Hubbel's "Teach Yourself COBOL in 24 Hours".

Jimmy, Calgary AB
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