Re: Learning COBOL

[R Bruce Hoffman <bruce.hoffman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, the lack of responses should tell you something...

Far be it from me to discourage you, but even the Federal Government has 
declared all their COBOL systems as "unmaintainable" and have resorted 
to replacing them with off-the-shelf software. For example, SAMMS 
(COBOL, custom, mainframe) is being phased out in place of SAP (yes, 
that SAP, and don't even get me started...) for procurement... as I 
type. It's taken them almost 10 years to do it, but it's almost done.

So, your best bet, IMHO, would be to find an employer willing to hire 
and train you in COBOL. If COBOL is important to them, and you are 
willing and eager enough, that would be enough to get you hired in most 
of the COBOL shops I deal with today. If you have some other language 
experience, then so much the better.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any colleges teaching COBOL any longer. 
As for self-training, unless the pricing has changed dramatically, 
Fujitsu's COBOL compiler can set you back $20K-30K. Not exactly a 
"hobbiest" or "home use" price. And CICS? I only know of that running in 
Mainframe and a few iSeries shops.

And lastly, don't stop with COBOL. Learn at least two or three 
programming languages. There is nobody on the planet, that I have given 
that advice to, that has regretted taking it. Especially AS400 COBOL 
programmers... ;-)  but that applies equally to RPG programmers that I 
taught COBOL to.


loravara@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Good Evening,
>  
> I am eager to learn COBOL, JCL, TSO, CICS and all of the other minutiae that
> go along with programming on an IBM mainframe.  Does anyone know if any
> college or university anywhere in the U.S. (preferably near Denver) offers
> courses in such areas?  Failing that, does anyone have advice on how to
> proceed, how to learn the skills that would be marketable to an employer
> without the backing of a university?  What, if anything, would prompt an
> employer to accept a self-trained programmer?
>  
> Thanks for any advice you can offer.  If this isn't the right list for this,
> I apologize; if you feel you have information but this is an off-topic
> question, please reply privately.  I began my COBOL studies with a mentor
> who said I had the mind of a programmer.  Between his lessons and lots of
> time with books, I've actually written some useful COBOL, and I can write
> basic JCL and use TSO fairly well.  BUT CICS is a mystery, and I know
> there's a lot more to cover in all areas.
>  
> Thanks in advance.
>  
> Lora
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