Talk:COBOL

Hello World!
I adapted the source code for "Hello World!" from the Wikiversity Hello, world! course to create a new section. It will be good if someone can provide instructions for building and executing this code. A brief survey of generally available COBOL build environments, including freeware, (e.g. GnuCOBOL) popular, and commercial products will be good. Provide step-by-step instructions for obtaining and installing the build environment along with build and execute instructions for at least one of these. The goal of this step is to allow someone to run the code based on the instructions provided. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 14:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)


 * See Programming Fundamentals/Introduction/COBOL. There is no need for any setup. Just use one of the available online IDEs. Programming Fundamentals includes COBOL examples through Lesson 5. Arrays, strings, and files can be added if there's any interest. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 17:28, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks that is helpful! I added a section linking to each of those lessons. --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 19:48, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * If you get a chance to extend the arrays, strings, and files lessons to include COBOL example programs that will be helpful. Please let me know and I will add COBOL program notes and assignments. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 12:03, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I've created examples for COBOL arrays and strings. File processing doesn't seem to be possible in the available online test environments. Paiza.io is the only one that supports additional files in the user interface, and a couple of quick tests to access those files were not successful. I may try and come back to this later, but COBOL file processing is system-specific. Examples would not necessarily carry over to other implementations.

Separately, please note that Programming Fundamentals is a 200+ subpage learning project specifically designed to demonstrate identical programming concepts in a wide variety of programming languages. The assignments you've added to the COBOL subpages don't match any of the 200 other subpages. When you get a chance, please move that content to this learning project instead.

Thanks! -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 16:42, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Done Thanks!--Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 22:59, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Language References
Several language references are available at: https://open-cobol.sourceforge.io/

These can be used as raw references, or to guide step-by-step lessons --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 19:33, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Hunting and Gathering
On-line resources for learning and practicing COBOL programming skills are abundant. Several such resources are collected here. They can be used by students for self-study as this Wikiversity course evolves, and they can be used as inspiration and references by Wikiversity editors to continue to extend and improve this course. Students and editors are encouraged to add useful resources to this list.
 * TutorialsPoint COBOL,
 * University of Limerick, Department of CSIS, COBOL programming - tutorials, lectures, exercises, examples
 * Academic Tutorials, COBOL
 * 7 cobol examples with explanations, Medium, Yvan Scher August 1, 2018
 * Programmer's Guide to the Oracle7 Server Call Interface, Sample programs in COBOL
 * The Beauty of the COBOL Programming Language, DevOps.com, Bob Reselman, December 24, 2018
 * COBOL Tutorial: What is, History, Install, Program Example, Guru99
 * COBOL Sample Programs, Surendersampath
 * TutorialBrain COBOL Tutorials
 * General COBOL Code Examples, Syndicate by Robert Skolinick
 * Using SQL in a COBOL Application Program, Broadcom
 * GNU COBOL Sample Programs

--Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 14:25, 19 April 2020 (UTC)