Posted in Computers & Tech / Programming / Programming General
Author: vicky99 Total-Replies: 18

Dear Friends
A few days back I was looking for a COBOL compiler. Therefore I made a post here assuming that some might come to my rescue. A few help did come but wasn’t very satisfying. Eventually I found the compiler I was looking for. My compiler is Micro Focus COBOL COMPILER 2.4.12. It runs smoothly under Windows 98, Windows XP and Windows 2003 (I have personally tested it on these operating systems).

When I turned to this forum for help regarding COBOL I was surprised to see that there was not even one topic written about COBOL. So I decided to write something about COBOL (though I have been learning COBOL for merely two three days).

COBOL is a programming language designed for solving business problems. COBOL though solves a lot more than just business problems and can be used as a solution to many data processing problems. COBOL excels in accounting systems and related activities such as inventory control, retail sales tracking, contact management, commissions, payroll etc etc. It is like English and easy to read. This is why people with little programming knowledge tend to favor it. COBOL professionals got a real boost when Y2K problem surfaced. In old COBOL dealing with date math is even more complicated. Dates in COBOL are typically stored in three different locations (a month, a day, and a year). The year is often stored as 2 digits to save space and simplify output problems with pre-printed forms. In some cases, COBOL programs were written with 4 digit dates and 1900 is subtracted from the date to generate the form (1981 - 1900 = 81) so that the form can look like 1981 when it is generated. This will cause a problem since 2001 - 1900 = 101 instead of 01. In other cases where a 6 digit date was used, the problem is even worse since there is no clear indication of which date we are talking with. Imagine COBOL program that deals with county records to record births and deaths. If all the dates are stored as 6 digits soon you will have records which say something like 08/04/54. Let us suppose, a man live to be a hundred years old, his date of birth is recorded as 08/04/54 and if he dies on his birthday 100 years later his death would also be 08/04/54. A casual observer might interpret this as him dying at birth or who knows what. The situation is not limited to COBOL programs, but because COBOL has been the language of fondness for business applications for so long, there are vastly more COBOL programs in existence. The importance of the year 2000 catastrophe has caused knowledgeable software experts to forecast horrible consequences. It is estimated that the cost of fixing the crisis will run into the billions of dollars. The demand for COBOL programmers increases more or less weekly, as more and more companies understand the scope of the year 2000 problem and begin to apportion resources for its solution.

COBOL stands for Common Business Oriented Language. COBOL was developed by the Conference on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL), convened in 1959 by the Department of Defense. COBOL compilers were available in 1960. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standardized a version of COBOL in 1968. The language was revised and updated by ANSI in 1974 and again in 1985. These standards sometimes are called COBOL or COBOL-68, COBOL-74, or COBOL-85. Most compilers are now COBOL-85 standard.

Some of the advantages of COBOL are that it caters well for business needs and is easily portable to different operating systems or platforms. However, the language is considered to be rather wordy with an overly rigid format. A further disadvantage is that COBOL lacks many of the programming instructions required by the scientific community.

Let’s write our first COBOL program. As you might have started learning many languages by printing “HELLO WORLD” in the screen, this is no exception. We shall write a program which would print “HELLO WORLD”.
Type the following codes in any text editor, say for example NOTEPAD.

000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID. HELLO.
000300 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000400 DATA DIVISION.
000500 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
000600
000700 PROGRAM-BEGIN.
000800 DISPLAY "HELLO WORLD".
000900
001000 PROGRAM-DONE.
001100 STOP RUN.

Save the file. Name the file HELLO.COB. Select “ALLFILES” in Save as type Field. I am assuming that you have Micro Focus Compiler, though the process is similar in all compilers. Create the Directory Called cob1 in C Drive (As I have done) and place the hello.cob file in that directory.

Now run the COBOL compiler. It is usually done by changing directory.
C:\>cd cobol

C:\Cobol>

Now give COBOL command and as the following.
C:\Cobol>cobol

Microsoft COBOL Compiler
Version 2.20 ©Copyright Microsoft Corp. 1982-87

Source filename [.COB]: c:\cob1\hello.cob
Object filename [HELLO.INT]: c:\cob1\hello.int
Listing filename [NUL.LST]: c:\cob1\hello.lst

** Scanning Environment Division...
** Scanning Data Division...
** Compiling Procedure Division...
** Generating Object Code...

No errors or warnings

Data area size = 232
Code area size = 38

---

Now Run the program using “runcob” command

C:\Cobol>runcob c:\cob1\hello

It will produce the following output

HELLO WORLD.

I hope you would like this article. If anybody is interested to learn COBOL please write to me and if some one is an expert please do help me in learning COBOL. Thank you all for your time. Bye..

Posted in Computers & Tech / Programming / Programming General
Author: FirefoxRocks Total-Replies: 13

I would like to say here that although programs can be interpreted (e.g. PHP) or compiled (e.g. Java, C), markup languages such as HTML, XML cannot be considered programming languages, as they do not enable one to write an algorithm in order to perform calculations or do anything. Rather, HTML describes the structure of web pages (and XML similarly with documents).

Personally I prefer JavaScript and PHP, as they are more prominent in web-based applications, however in high school we used Java in grade 11 and C in grade 12. In University the introduction to programming course teaches Java, however I've heard that other programming courses use C. Both of them I am comfortable with.

Of course I've heard of things like BASIC, C++, C#, etc., but I've never really investigated or used them.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Programming / Programming General / C, C++ & Visual C++
Author: Entheone Total-Replies: 13

Well, there are really no global standards when it comes to first-year programming languages, but here in Egypt C and PASCAL are the two programming language course that first-year engineering students take. I'm not sure why they teach PASCAL here, but from what I gather it's because of its less wordy syntax and of its popularity in the past.

C, on the other hand, is very effective for two main reasons. Firstly, if taught right, it can give a student a rather comprehensive understanding of the programming methodology in general (except for Object-Oriented Programming, of course). The second reason is that it's as close to a low-level language as you can get without actually being low-level. It has enough options for you to fine-tune your control over every aspect of your software, with the added option of directly embedding Assembly Code right into it for even finer tuning.

But its power and versatility is actually the very thing that makes C a rather hard language to begin with. I never really fully appreciated how powerful this language was until I read Bruce Eckel's Thinking in C, which I believe is an amazing book that virtually restructures your mind to be, if you will, One with the C! ;-)

If there's any tip I could give you in your first weeks, it's this: don't give up too quickly. Introduction to new concepts in C can get pretty intense at times. If there's something you don't fully understand, don't shrug it off. Stay with it till you feel comfortable enough with it. After you learn the language itself, and if you're still interested in developing your skills in it, then I think you should definitely give Bruce Eckel's book a shot. It'll transform you from a Master to an all-out Wizard.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Programming
Author: QBRADQ Total-Replies: 22



Yea, those programs that "translate" it to ASM, they're called "Compilers". Again, this is why I recomend books to anyone that is learning C/C++. In the introduction to nearly every book on the subject, they explain what the compiler does, what the linker does, ect. ect. This is something every programmer should know.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. COBOL is indeed still widely used, particularly on custom-made UNIX mainframes. Heck, there's even an episode of Dilbert about thier mainframe and it's COBOL programming. However, most of the jobs dealing with those large COBOL code bases are already taken. Beyond that, the mainframes are being slowly but surely replaced.

I would recomend that you get very good at C++. Explore all the possibilites of classes and templates. Learn as many data orgonization techniques as you can, such as linked lists, binary search trees, hierarcial object node systems and the like.

Suplement that with learning new languages just for the fun of it. For example, pick up Python, even if you only use it for a week. Already done Python? OK, go with Pearl. Heck, just Google around and try to find some obscure language that on one uses, and use it for a week.

The point I am trying to make here is that languages change at a rapid pace. The key to being a good programmer isn't knowing every language under the sun, it's simply to be a good programmer. Once you can code circles around your friends in any language, you'll be able to do the same in every language.

Good luck!
QBRADQ