The audience for this book is programmers who want to learn COBOL (ANSI X3.23-1985) quickly. It presents the basic groundwork so the reader can confidently face difficult COBOL problems. Brown includes a discussion of the unique attributes of COBOL, such as its development by a committee as a business programming language and other attributes related to its input/output orientation.

Overall, the book’s scope is sufficient to give the programmer a working knowledge of COBOL. Chapters cover language syntax, structured programming techniques, numeric and character data, record descriptors, sequential  input/output  concepts, tables, printed output, relative and indexed file concepts, job control language, sorting, subprograms, and mainframe applications.

An important part of the book covers program structure. The author presents techniques for writing modular and structured COBOL programs. Since COBOL was developed in the early 1960s, prior to the emphasis on structured design, any discussion of programming should include examples of how to write structured COBOL programs. Overall, the treatment of the language and program structure provides a good solid base for someone knowledgeable in higher-level programming languages (such as Pascal). Programmers whose experience is exclusively with languages such as C would be better served by a more complete description of these topics, however.

To help the reader understand the techniques discussed, the book contains many helpful examples. Exercises are included at the end of most chapters, with selected answers in Appendix B. With these examples and exercises, the author attempts not only to discuss the techniques but to demonstrate them through specific examples, follow-up exercises, and their solutions. Since more exercises cover the basic topics than the more advanced topics, however, an instructor attempting to use this book in the classroom would have to supplement the material for a more complete understanding.

The book accomplishes its goal of providing a good overview of both the COBOL language and programming techniques for the experienced programmer. Basic COBOL philosophy is presented as part of the programming techniques; this material is helpful in explaining the eccentricities of this input/output-oriented language. The book could be improved with additional exercises and their solutions. Since COBOL is primarily an input/output-oriented language, a more thorough discussion of the Environment Division should also have been included.