Structured Programming Cobol by Holmes (2 results)
- Hardcover
Seller: Reuseabook, Gloucester, GLOS, United KingdomReuseabook
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Good
£ 10.02
£ 10.00 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Hardcover. Condition: Used; Good. Dispatched, from the UK, within 48 hours of ordering. This book is in good condition but will show signs of previous ownership. Please expect some creasing to the spine and/or minor damage to the cover. Name in front of book.
- Softcover
Seller: Crappy Old Books, Barry, United KingdomCrappy Old Books
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Good
£ 6.00
£ 20.05 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: Good. Structured Programming in COBOL (1995) by B. J. Holmes. DP Publications. ISBN: 9781870941822 . Condition: Good. There are books that promise to change your life. This one promises to teach you structured programming in COBOL , which, depending on your employer, may well amount to the same thing. To th…e uninitiated, COBOL is that mysterious programming language whispered about in documentaries whenever an ancient banking system refuses to retire. Every few years someone confidently announces that COBOL is finally dead, only for a government department, insurance company or multinational bank to quietly reply, "Actually. we?d rather like it to keep running until Tuesday." Published in 1995, B. J. Holmes? Structured Programming in COBOL belongs to a fascinating era when "modern programming practices" involved introducing order, clarity and discipline into a language that had already been faithfully crunching payrolls, pensions and account balances for decades. While everyone else was becoming excited about multimedia CDs and Windows 95, millions of pounds continued to be moved around the financial world by lines of COBOL code that simply got on with the job without demanding applause. There?s something deeply reassuring about COBOL. It doesn?t aspire to be fashionable. It has never tried to impress anyone at a trendy software conference. It has no interest in start-ups promising to "disrupt the ecosystem." COBOL?s attitude has always been refreshingly simple: Would you like your wages paid correctly this month? Excellent. Leave me to it. This book takes the equally sensible approach that if you?re going to write COBOL, you may as well write it properly. Structured programming was one of computing?s great civilising influences, encouraging programmers to produce code that another human being might actually be able to understand without first consulting a medium. Concepts such as clear logic, sensible program flow and maintainable code may not sound glamorous, but they have saved countless programmers from spending entire weekends trying to work out why a payroll system suddenly believes everyone is owed £4.7 million. Reading a technical manual from the mid-1990s also offers an unexpectedly nostalgic pleasure. This was a time when programming books assumed you genuinely wanted to learn rather than simply copy and paste solutions from the internet. The explanations are methodical, the examples carefully developed, and there is an underlying optimism that, with sufficient effort, the reader will eventually understand what on earth is going on. For today?s programmer, the book is an intriguing historical snapshot. For those still maintaining legacy systems, however, it remains surprisingly practical. Somewhere, at this very moment, there is almost certainly a large organisation relying on software written in COBOL years before some of its current employees were born. The modern world rests upon astonishingly sophisticated technology?and an equally astonishing amount of dependable old code quietly refusing to give up. This copy is in good condition , making it an ideal addition for collectors of vintage computing, software engineers with a soft spot for legacy systems, or anyone who enjoys technical books that remind us just how rapidly the digital world has evolved. It also makes an excellent coffee-table conversation starter, if your friends happen to find database indexing and batch processing unexpectedly exciting. From Crappy Old Books ?because while everyone else was busy inventing the future, someone still had to make sure the electricity bills were calculated correctly, the pensions arrived on time and your bank balance survived another day. COBOL may never have been glamorous, but then neither is plumbing, and you notice both remarkably quickly when they stop working.
