Learn COBOL Super Fast

Yes, COBOL may seem like an obsolete language. But did you know the following...?

• COBOL powers about 80% of in-person financial services transactions and 95% of ATM swipes.

• On a daily basis, it processes $3 trillion in commerce.

• There are over 220 billion lines of code and 1.5 billion are written each year.

In other words, COBOL is far from dead. If anything, the language appears to be poised for growth in the years ahead. Part of this is the need for digital transformation. After all, if companies want to leverage new technologies – such as machine learning and AI (Artificial Intelligence) – there will be a need to work with legacy software systems.

Oh, and by the way, there is already a labor shortage for COBOL programmers. Many Baby Boomers are retiring – so there is a need to replace them in the workforce.

But even the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for COBOL. How so? Well, look at what happened in New Jersey recently. The state’s unemployment system was unable to handle the surge in claims. Because of this, the Governor created a TV commercial to hire COBOL programmers to fix the problem!

Now the good news about this language is that it was developed for non-technical people.  So in this course, you will need to spend only a couple hours to learn the fundamentals. There will also be no need to install large amounts of software and frameworks on your computer. Instead, I’ll be working with an easy cloud-based cloud app.

Overview of the Course

My teaching philosophy comes from the Nike playbook: “Just do it!” So in this course, I will go through lots of interesting examples that you can code along with. But I will also show you how to learn by making errors!

In this course, we’ll:

• See how to create the main structure for a COBOL language, such as with DIVISIONs, SECTIONs, PARAGRAPHs and so on.

• Look at ways to debug your programming.

• Use data types like strings and numbers.

• See how to use loops and conditional logic.

• Review the process of creating reports and working with files.

Are there any course requirements or prerequisites?

· There’s no programming experience required.

· There’s also no special software needed.

Who this course is for:

· Anyone who wants a great beginner’s guide for COBOL.

· Those who are looking for a change in their career or to enhance their existing career.