I am self taught. I started by taking a running program and making a very simple modification. Over the years, the modifications became more and more complex and involved hundreds of programs. I don't think I wrote more than a couple from scratch. I call it 'creative plagiarism' ;-)
I ran across a number of different programming styles and picked up those that made the program easier to understand and modify. I can recall only one or two programs that were written so badly as to be unsalvageable. So, start by obtaining a listing of a simple, working program. A friendly COBOL programmer may be able to help you with this task. Everybody has one or more 'quick and dirty' simple programs. With the COBOL Programmer's guide near by, go through the program top to bottom. Set up a test environment, make minor changes, and grow from there. Depending on your budget, a copy of one of the PC based compilers (Microfocus COBOL?) would be ever so handy. HTH and good luck. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Todd Burch Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 10:10 AM To: [email protected] Subject: If a guy wanted to teach himself cobol... ... what would be a good place to start with his self study? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
