Java for the COBOL Programmer

I have been a Cobol programmer for many years now and saw a need to move into the "new" world. I decided to go with Java. I started reading every book I could get my hands on about Java. I have read 14 Java books at all levels from "Hello World" to mastering EJB. Then I found this book. Java for the Cobol Programmer is probably the best book around for learning or advancing your Java skills.....if you have a history with Cobol. This is the first book I have found that recoginizes people other than C++ programmers might be interested in learning Java. I say get this book first read it front to back and absorb it. Then move on to more advanced books, then come back to this book and read it again.Best on the market. A must have for those wanting to move to Java.

This book serves as an excellent bridge for a mainframe programmer to learn JAVA basics and Object Oriented concepts. The chapters are succinct and filled with real world examples (not "hello Java" nonsense). Chapters 2 and 3 are just terrific. My favorite is the chapter on JAVA Structure (Chapter 3). The font is nice and legible for us over 50 and page layouts are easy on the eye. The examples are pertinent and do not talk down to you. The authors give line by line explations of coding examples and build upon them until towards the end of the book there is a realistic application. This is a great book if you want to get up to speed in JAVA. A word of caution. This book is just an introduction. Advanced JAVA concepts like SWING are not discussed. After absorbing this book go with the O'Reilly series: JAVA In A Nutshell and JAVA Examples In A Nutshell.

The best introduction to JAVA I've ever read. What the authors have achieved with this book, in just over 350 pages, most authors have not achieved in books over 1,000 pages. The examples are clear, simply, business oriented and easy to understand. I would indicate this book even if you're not a COBOL programmer.Hope the authors don't stop here. Really a great book.

This book is definitely the 1st one to read for a COBOL Programmer, (who has NO or "lite", "C", "C++", or "Smalltalk" background). Unfortunately the majority of the books on "JAVA" are written by people without any knowledge or "in depth" experience with COBOL, (and in many cases, no business programming background that easily identifies with a typical COBOL programmer), so they have no basis with which to relate the language concepts to experienced COBOL programmers who have worked primarily in manufacturing, banking, utilities, hospitals, retail, transportation, distribution, or similar general business, Corporate MIS, accounting & administration, analysis, and various related operational business mainframe backgrounds. [Numerically, we are more than all the rest of the language programmers put together and to my knowledge, have been totally ignored by this language market, (except by these authors)]. I also liked the examples the authors used ie, "BANKING TRANSACTIONS", [IE., "real world" activities which everyone has had to "deal with"; NOT like several others I have read that use "ABSTRACT" or "FAR OUT" examples... LIKE "How to program a Coffee Machine to deliver a "CUP OF COFFEE"; which only an extremely small percentage of programmers will ever use]. I wish I had had this book about 1 year earlier before I had spent so much money on beginning and intermediate books on JAVA to try and understand things that the authors of this book make readily easy to understand. I just hope the authors will also come out with the next level intermediate and also an advanced level JAVA book and build on the same examples as is present in their first one. In that case, I would throw away about 50+% of my current JAVA books and stick to theirs since I am confident they will teach me the same things in less time, better understood, and more useful.