Damn, I'd love to start with as/400, because I can't grasp the
concept of objects and libraries and the like. It's like a
weird VMS/NT to the extreme. Yes, I'm learning Cobol because
of an $JOB. For the rest I can just use GCobol for prototyping
and perfectly fine under my OpenBSD netbook; but in order
to get employed I truly need at least to know the basics of
AS/400.
MIKE POWELL wrote to ANTHK <=-
I was briefly a backup operator on an AS/400. I didn't learn much
about the programming side, but I think they were using RPG on ours.
As COBOL reads a lot like english, I found it easy to pick up. You do have to remember to define all of your variables in working storage...
As COBOL reads a lot like english, I found it easy to pick up. You do have >> to remember to define all of your variables in working storage...
COBOL was my favorite language. I learned it in the mid-'70s using an IBM 370/158; COBOL 74 was the dialect. Yeah, you had to watch that Data Division,
but the Procedure Div. could be even more treacherous. One mis-placed special
character can generate a multitude of error msgs. In fact we used to hold contests (unofficially, of course) on who could generate the most. I never came close to the record, which I believe was over 200 errors, just because a comma was used instead of a period, I forget how.
I worked for a catalog/retail company that did all of their compute on
3 S/36s and 2 AS/400s. I administered the PC side of the company, so I
got login rights to the AS/400s and could bring networks up and down -
later found out that I could have re-IPLed the system with my creds!
COBOL was my favorite language. I learned it in the mid-'70s using an IBM 370/158; COBOL 74 was the dialect. Yeah, you had to watch that Data Division, but the Procedure Div. could be even more treacherous. One mis-placed special character can generate a multitude of error msgs. In fact we used to hold contests (unofficially, of course) on who could generate the most. I never came close to the record, which I believe was over 200 errors, just because a comma was used instead of a period, I forget how.
Have you done COBOL on linux?
Have you done COBOL on linux ? I learned it in high school along with RPG ver used it. Took a course in college but changed it to pass/fail because 't keep up.
MIKE POWELL wrote to POINDEXTER FORTRAN <=-
Before the AS/400 this company had an IBM product that required "drum memory," and they apparently broke down and upgraded to the AS/400 once that type of memory became scarce... IIRC, they had to start sourcing
it from Brazil (and maybe used).
Dumas Walker wrote to MORTAR <=-
I was always amazed how many error messages just one error... typo, punctuation, etc... could produce. Then again, it was always great to
fix that one error and watch them all disappear! ;)
Amessyroom wrote to Mortar <=-
Have you done COBOL on linux ? I learned it in high school along with
RPG but never used it. Took a course in college but changed it to pass/fail because I wasn't keep up.
I use linux daily and wonder how hard it would be to find a free
compiler and editor that would help with keying in COBOL code.
Re: Re: What Is Unix? (was: H
By: Amessyroom to Mortar on Fri Jan 16 2026 02:06:10
Have you done COBOL on linux?
Nope, just on Big Blue. Wouldn't mind getting back into it again, just for fun.
Found this intro link on using gnucobol on iinux; so I may give it a try.
https://neilrieck.net/docs/linux_notes_gnucobol.html
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