Has anyone read the book Visual Cobol?

Hi Mark,

Just to clarify your point about Fortran - is that your primary language today?

I think what you're running into here are the difference between COBOL dialects - specifically ANSI COBOL versus Rocket COBOL.  Rocket COBOL doesn’t require periods at the end of every statement or to have everything in uppercase.

The book you're referencing was written for developers looking to exploit the Java platform, so it leans heavily on the OO extensions in Rocket COBOL. That makes it less useful as a starting point for someone learning COBOL from scratch.

If you're coming to COBOL fresh, I'd recommend starting here instead:https://www.rocketsoftware.com/en-us/learn-cobol

Hi,

I did not know these things about Rocket Cobol. I have books on Java, but right now I find Cobol and Fortran to be what I want to learn. I just finished Cobol made easy.  I have another book called Intro to Cobol.  Cobol made easy discussed all of the things that I could do with Cobol including the use of other languages. For now I am going to learn how to write Cobol code. In time I will get to learning more about Rocket Cobol.

Thanks for you hlelp.

Mark

Hi,

Back in the early 70’s I was in high school in a programming course. I did RPG 

and an assembler language called Easycoder. We also had Cobol and Fortran. I quit high school before I could take these other 2 languages.  A few weeks ago I discovered that these 2 languages still existed.  I like Fortran because I studied Math and Physics in College. The Cobol I am learning is pretty simple. You know learning Rocket Cobol may not be such a bad idea, Less syntax to worry about.

I am now in my early 70’s and looking for something to do. I need to make some money. I don’t get much from Social Security.

Rocket COBOL supports a number of Dialects including ANSI as well as the Rocket dialect. The Rocket dialect is more or less a superset of the ANSI dialect so you could learn both traditional syntax as well as more modern OO syntax for use with Java or .NET.

The latter of course also requires you to have some understanding the .NET or Java platform depending on which direction you go. The more modern Rocket COBOL syntax allows you to leverage the .NET and Java framework very effectively.

Hi, 

Thanks for your response. I have received a similar reply from another person. I think for now I am going to stick with traditional Cobol. I have seen the light with Rocket Cobol. 

For one there is much less syntax with Rocket than traditional Cobol.  Also, less capitalization.  What I want to do is learn as much as I can and write some code. 

I plan to write something with lots of code. Then there is Fortran. Again, lots of code. 

Thank you for responding. I appreciate it.

by the way, I still haven’t yet gotten the license to work with visual studio community. I can’t get the license to work so until I get the license installed I’ve got nothing. 

Mark