Murach's Mainframe COBOL

This is a very good piece of work.The book is good for those who have already a deep background in programming but are completely new to COBOL (like me), as well as for those who are completely new to programming in general.It is organized by task in a series of "How to ..." short sections, which provide the reader with complete information about specific topics in the matter of COBOL programming. If you like reading (like me) and not just jumping back and forth from one section to the other, this book provides a clear, well-written, consistent and enjoyable reading. If you have no time for reading the book from the beginning to the end, you can easily find the chapter you need to read, becase as I said before the "How to ..." organization effectively drives you to the things you need. However, I would anyway suggest to read the entire book because it gives a very good path for learning COBOL in a structured way.The book provides insights about programming on IBM z/OS systems, but also gives some information about COBOL programming with regards to other platforms. However, information about COBOL on non-mainframe platforms is often provided with focus on the differences with the IBM mainframe, so this is not the best choice if you're looking for COBOL programming on .NET or other (but ... is there anyone who writes in COBOL out of a mainframe shop ?).Last but not least, there are tons of good examples in this book. For an experienced Java programmer like me, it is quite easy to understand that these examples come from an experienced COBOL programmer, because it is made clear that only an experienced COBOL programmer can get this very "clean" code out of an "ancient" language that has only global variables, poor or no support for data types (don't tell me that PICs are data types, please) and no object orientation (yes, I know that there is also an object oriented version of COBOL ... but again, is anyone using it ?).This reading is being for me the same as it was Bruce Eckel's "Thinking in Java" ten years ago ...

The book came exactly as it was described. This is how the process should work!

This was my textbook for my COBOL I class. My goal was to learn as little about COBOL as possible. This book allowed me to get an A the class without very much reading at all. I am sure this is a great book if you want to learn COBOL. I do not know why very many people now would want to learn such an awful language like COBOL when there are much better languages out there. If you want to learn COBOL for some reason or you want to pass a class on COBOL without much reading/studying, this is the book for you. Keep programming! (not in COBOL)

Needed mor detail on VSAM fils. It good overall.

I bought this book, in part, because of a job that I interviewed for (mostly COBOL on IBM mainframe, with CICS, DB2, TSO, etc.). I spent 15+ years programming COBOL in the past and wanted to review.This is a very good book for that. It is clear, reasonably concise, has good examples, and is as complete as can be expected for a single book. It also doesn't contain the irritating commentary that certain other (which we will not name!) so-called COBOL manuals have.Very helpful book, and I am very glad I bought it. COBOL is not a dead language, as I had been led to believe.

Learn COBOL, the book although thick, I am sure there is a lot to learn, but it reads easy enough to understand.

I love this book it is a great introduction to COBOL the IBM mainframe environment. I mainly work in C on Linux and Windows computers, but I love COBOL also though I am still learning COBOL I can see it has many benifits particularly for use in mainframe systems.This is the only book on COBOL I have owned and I bet it is the best.

I've been using Mike Murach books as reference for over 10 years. His books are great! I always look for his books before I buy any others.