COBOL: From Micro to Mainframe (3rd Edition)

The authors are careful about pointing out differences between Cobol-85 and Cobol-74 as they arise. While this may seem to be a minor point with the advent of the latest Cobol standard, it is helpful to those who work with older systems that are not fully Cobol-85 compliant.

The Fujitsu Cobol environment comes along with the book. The Fujitsu compiler is a big improvement over the DOS-based compiler and editor that came with the second edition. An appendix provides some step-by-step examples to help the reader get up to speed with the compiler.

The book is weighted more towards micro computers - if you are working in a mainframe environment, you will probably want to find additional references on JCL, CICS, etc.

The book may not be the best choice for someone who has no previous programming experience, but for readers who have some background in programming (in any language) and are interested in learning Cobol, this book & compiler set is the best resource I've seen for Cobol at this level. I strongly recommend it.


this book was terrible   August 9, 2000
 3 out of 8 found this review helpful

If I were already a seasoned programmer, or had some type of backgound in the languages, this book would have been a good refresher. That not being the case I felt like i just gave my college bookstore my hard earned $80. This text lacks focus and never goes in depth with any specific topic. The tutorial gives you little instruction when creating a program for the first time. And being that most student who are beginner programmers learn by example, this book is a pathetic excuse for killing a tree. The chapters may not have been so bad if there were more detailed focus points as well as "understandable" exercises after each chapter. Books like these are a student's worst nightmare.