Teach Yourself COBOL in 21 days, Second Edition

Week 1 In Review

After the first week of teaching yourself COBOL, you should be familiar with the basic structure of a COBOL program. Because COBOL is much like the English language in structure and readability, you probably can follow programs containing unfamiliar material--something you might not be able to do when learning other programming languages. By now you should be able to easily recognize and build the four DIVISIONs, design your overall program structure, make decisions using the IF statement, designate the flow of your program using PERFORM and GO TO, and use the various operators to manipulate data stored within your program.

As you continue, focus on what is being accomplished and how it fits within the concepts you've learned so far. The lessons are designed to build on each other and reduce the need to turn back and rehash previous days, but don't feel bad if you need to do so. Although the design of COBOL is simple, this book moves at a rapid pace in order to ensure that you have all the necessary information to quickly become a competent COBOL programmer.