Rating:  - Although somewhat helpful -- a great disappointm
Although somewhat helpful, this book was a great disappointment to me. It was helpful in that it presented "part" (a very minor part) of Java in small increments. This enabled me to understand aspects of the language that I had been unable to grasp before - even though I have read many books and followed their examples by entering them into the computer and trying to run them.Often the runs failed.
But the disappointments dominated.
First: One would expect a book touted as Java for COBOL Programmers would start with COBOL and then show how to do the same thing in Java. But no! This book presents straight old Java and then shows "parallel" COBOL. Sometimes the "parallel" COBOL is quite convoluted.
Second: COBOL is a file processing language. Its primary purpose is to handle files and fields. But, alas there is no file IO of any type. I have been trying to find out how to develop an application generator/file manager in Java for some time. Like many other Java books -- this one too failed to help me to do so.
In fact, in the application examples there is no input at all. I did not do the applet examples, as that is not my interest.
Third: Problems with running the examples. In Chapter 9 my HelloWorld program could not find Class Set or Class HashSet. I found out after extensive time-consuming rummaging around in JDK on the included CD that these classes were in java.util, which the book mentions not at all. Now this may be due to my use of Visual Café as a development environment. But when I tried to run javac.exe from the DOS command line (like the book shows), both from a DOS window and from restarting to DOS, I was told that this program would not run in DOS mode. (I am in Windows 98.1.) When I click javac.exe in Windows mode it produced a blank DOS window which immediately shut down and was of no use to me.
Fourth: This book was originally due out in July of 1999 and it just came out this February (2000). Waiting this long and not getting satisfaction adds to the disappointment.
Fifth: A book of this type should include the author's e-mail address so that such issues as stated herein can be addressed directly. But I did not find one anywhere in the text or CD.
After I finished the book, I still felt that there might be some hope yet. I had noticed snippets of COBOL programs that I thought included file IO when I first examined the CD. But alas, I could find no native mode file IO, only convoluted COBOL programs with embedded Java syntax and file examples using proprietary methods and SQL via Microsoft Access.
MountainBruce@Worldnet.att.net
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