micro focus visual object cobol 1

[waycon]

I have a copy of "micro focus visual object cobol." It is old, but looks like a good low cost, way to learn something about OOP and GUI programming for the novice.

The documentation isn't written for beginners. Does anyone recall anything like a "for dummies" manual for this development environment?

 

[3gm]

If I were you, I'd pick up a text on VBA or look into some of the tutorials on the web. Visual Basic for Applications is supported in Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook, and many other products (including some non-Microsoft ones). I'd go that way for a few reasons:

1. Standard object-oriented COBOL is not in wide-spread use. I believe the old MicroFocus product you have is non-standard. The OO paradigm is hard enough to learn without the added baggage of the COBOL implementation.

2. Help for VB/VBA is widely available in print, on the web, at your local community college etc.

3. You'll likely be able to use what you learn to make you more productive with MS Word/Excel (i.e. macros).

4. You can transition to full VB.NET fairly easily.

5. It's also a good foundation for scripting on the PC with VBScript.

I've found VB/VBA to be a great adjunct to my toolkit and have even used it to write web services to interoperate with AcuCOBOL code driving the services.

Regards,

Glenn

 

[TonHu]

@3gm: What makes you say VB/VBA and OOP in one sentence without blinking an eye???? They are both nearly as much separated from OOP as Cobol (even with VisOC or NetExpress) is!

If you want hard-core OOP, then go for Smalltalk or Lisp (but you shouldn't want that ;-))
If you want practical OOP, go for Java or C#. Both have free development environments (Eclipse or NetBeans for java, and Visual Studio Express or SharpDevelop for C#) that are all capable of creating nice GUI user interfaces.
If you really, really, really like the Basic syntax, then VB.Net is an acceptable alternative to C#, as .NET is fully OOP founded, but the VB.Net language leaves some concepts out in the cold.

Btw, I'm not trying to start a religious war, but calling VB/VBA an OOP language is really pushing it.

HTH
TonHu

 

[3gm]

TonHu -

Points well taken.

If you'll re-read my post, I don't think I made the claim that VB/VBA is a truly OO language environment. I guess I'm principally influenced by the questioner's desire to "learn something about OOP and GUI programming."

I think VB/VBA can teach you many useful OO concepts (methods, properties, classes) and is quite capable of producing a pleasing, full-function GUI. It's not a far step from there to VB.NET and thence to C#, especially if you've mastered the CLR.

I've done the LISP thing; no objects there AFAIK, just CARs and CDRs and lots of parentheses. A tough learn for a newcomer in my experience.

C# is fine if you want to purchase the necessary software from Microsoft.

In my estimation, Java is the most likely alternative of those you propose. Certainly free tools and advice abound and it is a useful tool for anyone's toolkit.

Regards,

Glenn

 

[webrabbit]

Perhaps knows COBOL and just wants to add OOP and GUI to his (her?) repritoir.

 

[mikrom]

If you want only COBOL, it would be probably better to try a free version of MF's actual COBOL NetExpress instead of obsolete ones. According to their FAQ the free version is fully functional, but is limited to 2200 lines of source code.

For learning OOP there are dozen of options. If Java or C# seems to be complicated, you can use a OO scripting language as Python, Ruby, Groovy, OO REXX...etc.
My personal favorite is Python. It's fully OO but you can program procedural too. I use it for several years as a quick utility language.
To demonstrate how this simple language can be useful see the quick Python Solution of the problem export data from Cobol data files

 

[waycon]

Many thanks all for the replys. I actually don't care much about OOP. I am good at writing green screen applications, but would like add GUI to replace the green screen.

I'll have a look at VB.

I really do love this forum!

 

[tcsbiz]

waycon,

By green screen do you mean AS400, iSeries, etc? that is my background. I made the switch to .NET two years ago and haven't looked back.

Good Luck!

[2THUMBSUP]