I had lots of fun this morning on IBM’s COBOL FRIDAY with Sudharsana Srinivasan and Paul Newton. I talked mostly about COBOL intrinsic functions, but we also considered what to do if you wanted to write something that sort of works like a user-defined function. Enterprise COBOL doesn’t support user-defined functions just yet, but it’s in the works. My work-around involves writing nested programs. You can watch the webcast here if you are interested. I also posted some sample code at the Enterprise COBOL tab that goes along with the talk. The STACKY program does dynamic allocation and creates a stack for storing pointers to records. It uses a nested programming style to create the data structure.
Tag Archives: COBOL
What you can learn from the Cobol compiler about Assembly language
It can be fun to take a look at the assembly language listing of a Cobol program. Geeky, admittedly, but still fun. If you have never given the listings much thought, take a look at this video. You might be surprised what the Cobol compiler gets up to, and what you can learn about Cobol and assembler. In this video I examine whether to COMPUTE or not to COMPUTE, whether to PERFORM or to PERFORM THRU, and what happens when you tell the optimizer to give it the old college try.
Filed under IBM Mainframe Assembler
Institute for Data Center Professionals – Online Training
If you are looking to improve your enterprise System Z computing skills including Networking, Security, COBOL, Assembler, DB2 and IMS, check out the Institute for Data Center Professionals that is sponsored by Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY. They have an excellent System Z online program that is designed for anyone trying to advance their technical skills. The curriculum is extensive and unique. I taught a couple of assembler courses in the program last year. The program is very hands-on and you receive lots of personal assistance. If you are interested in this year’s program, you will need to hurry, though. Classes start in September. Here’s the link: http://idcp.marist.edu/
Filed under IBM Mainframe Assembler
