Murach's Structured COBOL

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Summary: The Guru of Mainframe Transaction Based Programming
Review: I have been reading Mike Murach books for decades now, and keep several on my desk. The CICS Desk Reference, for example, written by Doug Lowe, is still THE definitive reference for CICS programming. As one who has been around COBOL programming since the early 70's when Grace Hopper introduced it, I think this is one best books on the subject ever written.

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Summary: Murach's Structured COBOL
Review: I've just browsed this book, which was delivered just 5 minutes ago, but I was very disapointed. Most examples are still in the old fashion COBOL way from the 70's and are not taking advantage of "Mixed Case", "Scope Terminators"(not even mentioned in the index), which makes a COBOL program structured. Use of the "full stop (.)" should be forbidden, where it's not needed, and that's only at the end of a paragraph. Using "MOVE 'Y' TO EOF_SWITCH" instead of "Set EOF to True" even more disqualifies this book as a "structured programming" book, which should be more up-to-date in thinking of how to use Cobol. The examples on OO-Cobol seem to be ok, maybe written by another author?
This book is of course a good reference for Cobol programmers, but I was expecting a more "modern" aproach to using the Cobol language and have examples "extremly" structured and in every minute take advantage of possibilities available in the language. Younger programmers are used to other structured languages, e.g Visual Basic and Java, and should be informed that the Cobol language is not a "left over from the 60's" but is is real structured programming language. Old programs have to be rewritten or Cobol will not survive. My expectation was that Murach would help us, but this is not really the case!

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Summary: How to code, compile, test, and debug interactive programs
Review: Murach's Structured COBOL is a complete course in the use of COBOL in a single 780-page volume. Mike Murach, Anne Prince, and Raul Menendez collaborate to cover all aspects from getting started and special-purpose features to file handling and the use of COBOL for specific platforms. Readers will learn how to code, compile, test, and debug interactive programs; the best techniques for designing and coding structured programs; the specifics necessary for developing programs for IBM mainframes; fourteen full programs and dozens of coding examples to enable the coding of the reader's own programs; and exercises at the end of each chapter to provide a maximum amount of applied practice in a minimum of time on your own personal computer. The informative, "user friendly" text is accompanied by a CD-ROM. Murach's Structured COBOL is very highly recommended for the novice approaching COBOL for the first time, and has much of value for even the seasoned, experienced COBOL user.

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Summary: If you write COBOL programs (or want to), you need this book
Review: Structured COBOL is a brand new addition to the excellent catalog of mainframe computer programming books published by Mike Murach and Associates. If you are programming on the IBM mainframe platform, or intend to be, this is a title you should have on your desk. Although beginning programmers are included in the target audience, the real value of this material will be as a reference for on-the-job programmers.

At more than 760 pages, it covers everything you would need to research. Information is presented in an innovative format where each page of narrative is paired with a facing page containing a concise statement of COBOL syntax, suggested guidelines for the use of the COBOL feature, and one or more practical examples of the feature in code.

If you are a beginning programmer, the coverage of structured design, coding, and testing methodology is the best I have ever seen. Used as a text to learn COBOL, the language syntax is designed to be generic enough to work under any COBOL compiler. The chapters of the first section of the book are intended to be read in sequence as the information they provide each builds on the prior chapter. You will be writing COBOL code beginning in chapter 2. The remaining sections cover advanced, special-purpose features and techniques and may be read in the order that best suits the reader.

Although the COBOL coding is generic enough to be useful on any platform and compiler, the ultimate goal of the book is aimed at the IBM mainframe environment. The last section of the text covers such IBM specific topics as using ISPF and SDSF to edit, compile, and debug a COBOL program. It also includes sections on designing COBOL programs to run under CICS and to access DB2 databases.

As with all Murach books, the focus of Structured COBOL is getting real work done in the real world. All of the example code in the book can be applied directly to real world situations: dealing with pre-2000 dates in legacy programs, updating sequential files using matching record techniques, and creating and updating indexed datasets with primary only or primary plus alternate record keys. There is even a section describing how to deal with maintenance on programs written prior to the advent of structured design methods.

If you are looking for a single COBOL book for your library, take a look at Murach's Structured COBOL.

Rating:
Summary: If you write COBOL programs (or want to), you need this book
Review: Structured COBOL is a brand new addition to the excellent catalog of mainframe computer programming books published by Mike Murach and Associates. If you are programming on the IBM mainframe platform, or intend to be, this is a title you should have on your desk. Although beginning programmers are included in the target audience, the real value of this material will be as a reference for on-the-job programmers.

At more than 760 pages, it covers everything you would need to research. Information is presented in an innovative format where each page of narrative is paired with a facing page containing a concise statement of COBOL syntax, suggested guidelines for the use of the COBOL feature, and one or more practical examples of the feature in code.

If you are a beginning programmer, the coverage of structured design, coding, and testing methodology is the best I have ever seen. Used as a text to learn COBOL, the language syntax is designed to be generic enough to work under any COBOL compiler. The chapters of the first section of the book are intended to be read in sequence as the information they provide each builds on the prior chapter. You will be writing COBOL code beginning in chapter 2. The remaining sections cover advanced, special-purpose features and techniques and may be read in the order that best suits the reader.

Although the COBOL coding is generic enough to be useful on any platform and compiler, the ultimate goal of the book is aimed at the IBM mainframe environment. The last section of the text covers such IBM specific topics as using ISPF and SDSF to edit, compile, and debug a COBOL program. It also includes sections on designing COBOL programs to run under CICS and to access DB2 databases.

As with all Murach books, the focus of Structured COBOL is getting real work done in the real world. All of the example code in the book can be applied directly to real world situations: dealing with pre-2000 dates in legacy programs, updating sequential files using matching record techniques, and creating and updating indexed datasets with primary only or primary plus alternate record keys. There is even a section describing how to deal with maintenance on programs written prior to the advent of structured design methods.

If you are looking for a single COBOL book for your library, take a look at Murach's Structured COBOL.