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Computer programming in COBOL
What’s new in the oflice Electronic Office Monitor. Edited by Derek redder. Published by Gower. X125 for first year, including updates.
Electronic Office Monitor is intended to be an updateable catalogue of available equipment for the electronic office, backed up by advice on designing and implementing systems. There are five parts to the Monitor. The first two sections provide guidance on automating office procedures, from how to decide what you need, to implementation. The rest of the Monitor describes what is available now, provides a supplier index, and gives profiles of the major vendors. The equipment sections in particular are to be updated quarterly, because, as the introduction points out, ‘the rate of change in the electronic office is high and shows every sign of remaining so’. The first two sections make interesting reading. Not only is there the usual project planning approach, and guide
to conducting user surveys, but there is a thoughtful look at the broader issues surrounding office automation. Do you really know what you want? Are you aware of what you might be letting yourself in for? As the text points out, DP managers have been used to paying large amounts to suppliers to keep up with demand and technology. Office managers need to be aware that once they move into the electronic office arena, they will face this same situation, and there will be no turning back. There will be problems in implementing electronic equipment in the office, which should be faced from the start. Most managers, says the book, start with the most easily perceived problem - the secretaries. Yet in most organizations secretarial work is responsible for only about 8% of total office costs. So all office work should be looked at - the forms of communication, storage of data, and
so on.
Making changes will affect the staff. In the UK there is a technology agreement with trade unions under which health hazards, job losses and retraining, for example, must be discussed and agreed with the union. Such discussions are almost certain to slow down the introduction of equipment into the office. The Monitor is, it seems, aimed at whoever makes the decisions regarding office automation. This is not necessarily the DP manager, for apparently in only about 18% of cases in the UK has the DP manager been responsible for implementing office technology. So perhaps it is the office manager who will receive overall responsibility for automating the office. Yet someone has to decide even this initially, and it is perhaps that higher authority who first ought to dip into the Electronic Office Monitor before passing it on.
Teach yourself COBOL Computer Programming in COBOL by Melinda Fisher. Published by Hodder& Stoughton. 202 pp. X2.95.
This ‘teach yourself book takes the pupil through basic COBOL syntax from beginning to end, with constant reference to certain specific examples that are developed at each stage. The chapter immediately following those on syntax consists of the entire coded example program. The pupil will preferably have some experience in another programming language, for example BASIC, but the first chapter explains sufficient of the terms and concepts of modern computing to enable the complete beginner to make use of the book. The emphasis throughout is on
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commercial applications, and is not aimed at the programmer who is interested in being clever with arithmetic or data manipulation for its own sake; it is confined to the practical. The concluding chapter places the computer programmer within the context of the DP department, outlining the programmer’s role in the development of applications and stressing the importance of thorough and wellorganized documentation. The book is also provided with a comprehensive set of reference appendices (e.g. the EBCDIC collating sequence, COBOL reserved words) and exercises, with answers. The author, Melinda Fisher, is manager of the Application Program-
ming Training department with ICL. She writes concisely and efficiently, but with humour (for example in the explanation of the term ‘debugging’, dating back to the occasion when an insect was found to be the cause of a problem in a computer). The book as a whole is methodical and easy to follow - with the caveat that on occasion it seems as though the proofreader was not a computer programmer. Although it is obviously aimed at the absolute beginner in COBOL, the book also has a value as an easily accessible volume of reference for the inexperienced programmer. PAM SKINNER Applications Programmer Barclays Unicorn Group
data processing
Electronic Office Monitor is intended to be an updateable catalogue of available equipment for the electronic office, backed up by advice on designing and implementing systems. There are five parts to the Monitor. The first two sections provide guidance on automating office procedures, from how to decide what you need, to implementation. The rest of the Monitor describes what is available now, provides a supplier index, and gives profiles of the major vendors. The equipment sections in particular are to be updated quarterly, because, as the introduction points out, ‘the rate of change in the electronic office is high and shows every sign of remaining so’. The first two sections make interesting reading. Not only is there the usual project planning approach, and guide
to conducting user surveys, but there is a thoughtful look at the broader issues surrounding office automation. Do you really know what you want? Are you aware of what you might be letting yourself in for? As the text points out, DP managers have been used to paying large amounts to suppliers to keep up with demand and technology. Office managers need to be aware that once they move into the electronic office arena, they will face this same situation, and there will be no turning back. There will be problems in implementing electronic equipment in the office, which should be faced from the start. Most managers, says the book, start with the most easily perceived problem - the secretaries. Yet in most organizations secretarial work is responsible for only about 8% of total office costs. So all office work should be looked at - the forms of communication, storage of data, and
so on.
Making changes will affect the staff. In the UK there is a technology agreement with trade unions under which health hazards, job losses and retraining, for example, must be discussed and agreed with the union. Such discussions are almost certain to slow down the introduction of equipment into the office. The Monitor is, it seems, aimed at whoever makes the decisions regarding office automation. This is not necessarily the DP manager, for apparently in only about 18% of cases in the UK has the DP manager been responsible for implementing office technology. So perhaps it is the office manager who will receive overall responsibility for automating the office. Yet someone has to decide even this initially, and it is perhaps that higher authority who first ought to dip into the Electronic Office Monitor before passing it on.
Teach yourself COBOL Computer Programming in COBOL by Melinda Fisher. Published by Hodder& Stoughton. 202 pp. X2.95.
This ‘teach yourself book takes the pupil through basic COBOL syntax from beginning to end, with constant reference to certain specific examples that are developed at each stage. The chapter immediately following those on syntax consists of the entire coded example program. The pupil will preferably have some experience in another programming language, for example BASIC, but the first chapter explains sufficient of the terms and concepts of modern computing to enable the complete beginner to make use of the book. The emphasis throughout is on
32
commercial applications, and is not aimed at the programmer who is interested in being clever with arithmetic or data manipulation for its own sake; it is confined to the practical. The concluding chapter places the computer programmer within the context of the DP department, outlining the programmer’s role in the development of applications and stressing the importance of thorough and wellorganized documentation. The book is also provided with a comprehensive set of reference appendices (e.g. the EBCDIC collating sequence, COBOL reserved words) and exercises, with answers. The author, Melinda Fisher, is manager of the Application Program-
ming Training department with ICL. She writes concisely and efficiently, but with humour (for example in the explanation of the term ‘debugging’, dating back to the occasion when an insect was found to be the cause of a problem in a computer). The book as a whole is methodical and easy to follow - with the caveat that on occasion it seems as though the proofreader was not a computer programmer. Although it is obviously aimed at the absolute beginner in COBOL, the book also has a value as an easily accessible volume of reference for the inexperienced programmer. PAM SKINNER Applications Programmer Barclays Unicorn Group
data processing