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COBOL 85 and 2002 for old timers.
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| john@wexfordpress.com 2005-08-02, 4:59 pm |
| What is an efficient and not-too-expensive way for people raised on
COBOL 68 and 74 to understand the changes wrought since then? Mostly I
can do what I need to do withing my old skill set, but if there have
been some real enahncements I don't want to miss opportunities.
I use OpenCobol 32 on Linux at the moment. The lack of position control
on ACCEPT and DISPLAY is an annoyance but I may find a workaround.
John Culleton
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| Pete Dashwood 2005-08-02, 9:59 pm |
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<john@wexfordpress.com> wrote in message
news:1123021129.511425.56410@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> What is an efficient and not-too-expensive way for people raised on
> COBOL 68 and 74 to understand the changes wrought since then? Mostly I
> can do what I need to do withing my old skill set, but if there have
> been some real enahncements I don't want to miss opportunities.
>
> I use OpenCobol 32 on Linux at the moment. The lack of position control
> on ACCEPT and DISPLAY is an annoyance but I may find a workaround.
>
There have been many changes, most of them quite rational and representing
improvement.
The first thing that sprang to my mind when I read this was the elimination
of full stops (periods) by use of "scope delimiters" END-IF, END-PERFORM
But it isn't just about language constructs, John. There are "new" (some
have been around for 30 years...) techniques in designing and building code
as well.
I can't think offhand of any particular publication I have read that covers
exactly what you want. Maybe have a look at the concepts of structured
programming? This leads on to Object Orientation and that leads on to
component building, but I doubt these facilities are available in the
environment you are using, even if you really wanted to pick them up.
Meantime, you are managing to program your Linux platform from within your
comfort zone and I say "Good Luck" to you.:-)
The satisfaction you derive from finding workarounds for limitations like
the ACCEPT/DISPLAY positioning will be at least as valuable as it would be
from any other hobby... :-)
If you are really serious about extending your COBOL skills you can obtain a
free Object Oriented COBOL compiler from www.adtools.com, but I'm not sure
if there is a Linux version. Richard Plinston, who is a frequent poster here
would be the man to talk to.
Pete.
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| Richard 2005-08-02, 9:59 pm |
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john@wexfordpress.com wrote:
> I use OpenCobol 32 on Linux at the moment. The lack of position control
> on ACCEPT and DISPLAY is an annoyance but I may find a workaround.
Try AT LINE nn COLUMN nn
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| Richard 2005-08-02, 9:59 pm |
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john@wexfordpress.com wrote:
> What is an efficient and not-too-expensive way for people raised on
> COBOL 68 and 74 to understand the changes wrought since then? Mostly I
> can do what I need to do withing my old skill set, but if there have
> been some real enahncements I don't want to miss opportunities.
There were at least two books written for just such a process, both
were called "COBOL 85 for Programmers". One was by Jim Inglis and the
other by Donald Nelson. But they were 20 years ago.
If Don is here: do you have any left over ?
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| john@wexfordpress.com 2005-08-06, 9:59 pm |
| That compiles clean but the displayed item is on the next line at
column 1 no matter what I wrote. This is with OpenCobol. OTOH SCREEN
SECTION works with TinyCobol so I am going to try to master that
technique. In another post I have asked for examples, particularly of
the ACCEPT logic with SCREEN SECTION.
JOHN C.
te
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| john@wexfordpress.com 2005-08-06, 9:59 pm |
| Structured programming is not a problem, I am on board, but a bit
rusty.
I have on my shelf a book titled "Modular Programming in Cobol"dated
1973. I have Murach/Noll books on structured programming techniques
that are earlier than that and some later, such as the 1978 version of
"The Structured Programming Cookbook." I heard Professor Dykstra
lecture on "GOTO considered harmful" at the Spring Joint Computer
Conference in (about) 1972.
Suffice it to say I don't need help with either structured programming
(which I get) or object oriented programmng (which I pretty much
ignore.) There are things like the SCREEN SECTION that are not covered
even in books as recent as
Stern & Stern 1985 edition. Now I have some newer books on order. But
in the meantime if someone can point me to resources on the web that
will get me over some immediate problems with user interaction I would
be most grateful. There is always Tcl/Tk but the thought of interfacing
that with COBOL makes my head hurt.
The adtools thingie from Fujitsu you pointed me to is tied in with MS
net programming and hence not in my ballpark as a Linux and Unix
trained person.
My visit back to COBOL is not an exercise in nostalgia. I have current
needs in G/L and order entry that go beyond the existing packages such
as Web-ERP and SQL-Ledger that are available to me. Since I used to
make my bucks writing COBOL and supervising others doing the same it is
a natural place to look
for rolling my own solution. But I need a litle help from my friends.
Resources, anyone?
John Culleton
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| Richard 2005-08-06, 9:59 pm |
| > There are things like the SCREEN SECTION that are not covered
> even in books as recent as
Screen Sections and Accept/Display UPON CRT are not part of '85 Cobol
but are X/Open standards and various extensions by many compiler
writers.
> The adtools thingie from Fujitsu you pointed me to is tied in with MS
> net programming
No. Fujitsu version 3 is Windows but not .NET.
You may also want to look at Kobol from TheKompany (thekompany.com). It
is not free but is only $US 60.00 or so.
It does Screen Section and such.
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| Joe Zitzelberger 2005-08-10, 3:59 am |
| In article <1123370449.037587.197170@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"Richard" <riplin@Azonic.co.nz> wrote:
>
> You may also want to look at Kobol from TheKompany (thekompany.com). It
> is not free but is only $US 60.00 or so.
Are they still in business?
I thought their web site was just leftover roadkill on the information
super-highway.
They have listed support for PowerPC and MacOS X 10.2 as "coming soon"
for over two years now.
That kinda leaves the impression that they are not really a 'going
concern'...
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| Richard 2005-08-10, 3:59 am |
| > That kinda leaves the impression that they are not really a 'going
> concern'...
TheKompany have many products, I suspect that Kobol, which is just one
of its products, has not sold well enough to justify priority
investment. I would like to see the next version as it was promised to
have embedded SQL which would make it viable as a multiuser language.
If you look at its site you should notice that news postings about
various product releases have been quite regular with 4 last month, so
they still are an active company.
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