Structured Cobol Methods: How to Design, Code, and Test Your Programs So They're Easier to Debug, Document, and Maintain

by Paul Noll

This little book doesn't teach COBOL itself. Instead, it teaches you how to design, code, and test your COBOL programs so they're easier to debug, document and maintain. Just open up to any page (there are 5 model programs to get you started right), and picture what a difference these methods can make in the program you're working on right now. Then, go to work and start experimenting. You'll be delighted at the results!(6 chapters + 5 complete model programs (specs, design, and code), 208 pages)

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1997

Reviews

[Brent Meadows · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book on classic structured programming in COBOL
It is very hierarchical in its approach.
It covers structure more than code reuse.

For a small COBOL book, it is good to provide examples of different program types in an introductory COBOL book:
- A CICS example
- Two DB2 examples

It briefly discusses in-line perform statements.

It does not discuss the following:
- Nested COBOL programs
- Using Conditional Compilation
--- In mainframe, only recently available.
- Omitting periods within a paragraph
- Using underscores in labels

Coverage on CICS programming brings up one topic:
- D.R.Y. - Do Not Repeat Yourself.
The coding of maps separate from programs in CICS invoke a lot of repetitive code.

I bought the book because I remember a small code snippet of very hard-to-read code. That was an example of bad code one might find in the wild.

Other COBOL books to consider:
- O'Reilly - Modern Mainframe Development
- Advanced COBOL by Gary Brown
- COBOL for the 20th Century by Nancy Stern


More modern works to consider while improving code:
- Clean Code by Robert Martin
- Pragmatic Programmer
- Code Complete by Microsoft Press
- Beautiful Code
The above are for the classic curly bracket languages, but are good reads.