What happens when you get on the bandwagon after everyone else is already there? You try to catch up rather quickly. There are some folks who want to lean COBOL real fast in order to fix an Y2K problem. The only thing is that they don't know the programming language. I found a book that can help those people a leg up. The book is called Sams Teach Yourself COBOL In 21 Days. It was written by Mo Budlong and published by Sams Publishing. This is the third edition of the book.
Being true to its title, the book is broken down into 21 segments, one for each day. There are also seven Bonus Days that cover additional topics.
Your first day consists of getting familiar with the basic elements of the COBOL language. You learn what your computer does in relation to a programming language. You also learn a little about COBOL and what a program language actually is. The "Hello World" program is introduced to get your feet wet in COBOL programming.
The second day teaches about constants and variables. These are two key elements in the development of COBOL code. You also learn about numeric values and what they mean in the overall programming structure. The book goes through how to set up the screen format for program output.
Day 3 takes you through the structure of COBOL. Learn about program flow and how important it is to have continuity in the way you writing the code. Learn what Stop Run is and how it relates to program flow.
Other days in your first week of this book include learning about the decision making process in programming COBOL. You learn some of the control functions like PERFORM, GO and IF. Program operators like SPACES and ZEROES are covered here.
Day 7 deals with design elements. Things like why should you write a program and who will benefit from it are discussed.
Each day ends with a summary. This puts in a nutshell all of what was just covered in the chapter. There is also a Workshop, which contains a quiz, and some exercises. If you don't do the exercises, at least answer the questions on the quiz. That way you'll know if the material sunk in or not.
At the end of each seven-day segment, or week, there is a brief review of the previous weeks lessons. It tells what you should have learned during the past seven days.
Other day's lessons include Printing, Structured Data, Arrays, Complex Data Entry and Data Integrity.
If you feel the need to learn the COBOL programming language, then this book is a real good starting place. It covers all the basics of COBOL without getting into the more complex coding that other texts do.
The book also comes with a CD that contains a COBOL compiler from Acucorp. There is also a web browser plug in so that you can run your programs over the Internet.
Sams Teach Yourself COBOL In 21 Days retails for $ 39.99. It can be found in the Computer Programming section of booksellers like Barnes and Nobles.
For more information about this book or other Sams Publishing titles, check out their web site at www.samspublishing.com