Re: advice on books to learn cobol

some wrote:
Donald Tees wrote:
some wrote:
Hi All,

Thanks a lot for your suggestions and help.


The Mike Murach books will prepare you for a zSeries machine, but whether or
not it will take "a few weeks" is up to you and how fast you can learn. Are
they giving you access to a machine and a compiler so you can learn by doing
instead of just reading?
They expect me to practice on a Windows platform and getting a compiler
from somewhere. Machine access will be given after I can convince them
that I can do the task.
Do they expect you to pay the two grand or so cost out-of-pocket, or do
they expect you to steal a copy for them?

Donald
Hi Donald,

I am unclear by your message. As I am new to this field I don't know
much about cost of compiler or the machine but I thought there might be
some free compilers which could be used with a Windows machine. Can
anybody recommend some good ones? A web search reveals many and I am
confused which should I choose?

I thought if I work on a Windows machine with some COBOL compiler the
language skills could be transferrable while working on a mainframe.

Am I understanding something incorrectly?

Can you please clarify?

Thanks a lot.


Well, the machines are cheap enough, but a modern, professional quality Cobol Compiler goes for about $3000, even on a PC. There are a couple of open source/shareware compilers, but getting any of them to work is not a job for a beginner (nor for an old pro, for that matter). You have to be somewhat of an fan to bother, and the work involved is far greater than learning a relatively simple language. There are a couple student versions, but they are quite limited in scope.

Emulating the kind of setup that you get on a mainframe is simply not possible without spending a good amount of cash, combined with a fair amount of time. And that combined with some expertise. The less the expertise, the greater the cash.

Donald
.

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