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Review of High Level COBOL Programming, by G. Weinberg, S. Wright, R. Kauffman, M. Goetz, Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1977

Review of High Level COBOL Programming, by G. Weinberg, S. Wright, R. Kauffman, M. Goetz,... BOOK REVIEWS By Stephen R. Barkin Humanized Input, by T. Glib and G.M. Weinberg, Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1977, 283 pp. Certainly a problem area of business data processing is the control of input. We have seen, however, few publications directed at this error-prone topic. Glib and Weinberg have given us the first volume I have seen solely concerned with input design and control. On its plus side, the book presents in handbook form chapters on default messages, positional messages, checkwords, checking and variance. I found these chapters to make good sense and provide many useful techniques to exercise over input. On the minus side, the type format of the book is cheap looking and difficult to read, and some of the sections are a bit obscure. Further, the handbook format makes for difficult reading. Despite its shortcomings, Humanized Input does put together in one concise volume many techniques for improving our control over input and, therefore, deserves careful consideration by analysts. The Environment for System Programs, by F.G. Withington, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1978, 324 PP. One of the ongoing problems facing business data processing has been that many of our programming personnel have come to us with educational and professional backgrounds that are nonbusiness related. As such, their knowledge of the users, organizations and products for which programs are designed is initially limited. Until a thorough understanding of the environment in which they function is obtained, these programmers must have a limited effectiveness. Fred Withington has given us a product that will quickly provide a fundamental understanding of this business data processing environment. The book is divided into four parts: Individual Users, Organizations, The Effects of Modes of Use, The Product Environment. The first two parts are a primer on management functions and data processing personnel as they are normally found. The second two parts describe the multifaceted processing environment, batch, OLRT, time sharings, telecomm, DBMS and so on, and the programming environment, vendors, market research and so on. While I would heartily recommend the first two parts of this book as must reading for all business data processing programmers, the last two parts would be old ground for most. I would, however, recommend sending the last two parts to uninformed management personnel, since they describe the highly complex technological environment and structure of business data processing in a clear and simple manner. If you are a programmer, buy this book, read the first two parts and give it to a manager. If you are a manager, buy it, read the last two parts and give it to a programmer. programming standards. Recognizing the heavy investments in programming, this is a handbook of COBOL style, documentation technique and testing standards that if referenced may well save bucks and increase quality and control. While many of the chapters are typical of programming style books, I found several interesting and refreshing. The chapter entitled "Sheltering" describes techniques to protect the user from surprises. I find it heartening to see the user mentioned in a hard-core programming book. The chapter on maintenance tackles head-on another verboten topic: once a program is in production, if wellwritten, it will never need maintenance. Most programming style books give us this impression; not so here. The book is well written, light in style, heavy in topic, with a good supplementary readings list. This should be in the company library. The Data Center Disaster Consultant, by K.W. Lord Jr., QED Information Sciences, Wellesley, MA, 1977, 159 PP. A topic of increasing concern in recent years has been the protection of the physical components of computer systems and data from the unauthorized hands of man and nature. This presents little that is not common sense, little that we could not sit down ourselves and, given the time, conclude. Its contribution to the literature, however, is that it presents a rather complete and concise coverage of this important topic. The language is terse and topics are covered too quickly, but the checklists provided could be an important asset to the computer center manager. This book should be strongly considered by those interested in this topic. The Compleat Computer, being a compendium of tales of the amazing and marvelous, poetry, information news items, cartoons plus many other illustrations with a special selection of splendiferous science fiction art in full color, by D. Van Tassel, SRA, 1976, 216 pp. Most of the reviews we've seen in DATA BASE have been industrially or academically oriented and aimed at providing information to assist you in professional development. For a change, I thought it would be interesting to review a book that is written for fun reading. Dennie Van Tassel has compiled a collection of articles that cover the world of computing from computer chess to computer crime. There is something to interest everyone in this book. Most of the articles are one to three pages long. If you want to acquaint your wife or children with what you do, this is the book for it. Of particular note is Art Buchwald's "The Great Data Famine," Robert Townsend's " C o m p u t e r s and their Priests" and Computers in Science Fiction and Art. Other articles by Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Sam Ervin, Joseph Weizenbaum, A . M Turing, Herman Kahn and others will provide hours of reading enjoyment whether three pages at a time or all at once. See, Morn, computers can be fun. High Level COBOL Programming, by G. Weinberg, S. Wright, R. Kauffman, M. Goetz, Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1977, 252 pp. This is a book for those organizations or programmers who are interested in establishing, improving or verifying their DATA BASE Winter1979 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png ACM SIGMIS Database Association for Computing Machinery

Review of High Level COBOL Programming, by G. Weinberg, S. Wright, R. Kauffman, M. Goetz, Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1977

ACM SIGMIS Database , Volume 10 (3) – Dec 31, 1978

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Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 by ACM Inc.
ISSN
0095-0033
DOI
10.1145/1040730.1040736
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS By Stephen R. Barkin Humanized Input, by T. Glib and G.M. Weinberg, Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1977, 283 pp. Certainly a problem area of business data processing is the control of input. We have seen, however, few publications directed at this error-prone topic. Glib and Weinberg have given us the first volume I have seen solely concerned with input design and control. On its plus side, the book presents in handbook form chapters on default messages, positional messages, checkwords, checking and variance. I found these chapters to make good sense and provide many useful techniques to exercise over input. On the minus side, the type format of the book is cheap looking and difficult to read, and some of the sections are a bit obscure. Further, the handbook format makes for difficult reading. Despite its shortcomings, Humanized Input does put together in one concise volume many techniques for improving our control over input and, therefore, deserves careful consideration by analysts. The Environment for System Programs, by F.G. Withington, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1978, 324 PP. One of the ongoing problems facing business data processing has been that many of our programming personnel have come to us with educational and professional backgrounds that are nonbusiness related. As such, their knowledge of the users, organizations and products for which programs are designed is initially limited. Until a thorough understanding of the environment in which they function is obtained, these programmers must have a limited effectiveness. Fred Withington has given us a product that will quickly provide a fundamental understanding of this business data processing environment. The book is divided into four parts: Individual Users, Organizations, The Effects of Modes of Use, The Product Environment. The first two parts are a primer on management functions and data processing personnel as they are normally found. The second two parts describe the multifaceted processing environment, batch, OLRT, time sharings, telecomm, DBMS and so on, and the programming environment, vendors, market research and so on. While I would heartily recommend the first two parts of this book as must reading for all business data processing programmers, the last two parts would be old ground for most. I would, however, recommend sending the last two parts to uninformed management personnel, since they describe the highly complex technological environment and structure of business data processing in a clear and simple manner. If you are a programmer, buy this book, read the first two parts and give it to a manager. If you are a manager, buy it, read the last two parts and give it to a programmer. programming standards. Recognizing the heavy investments in programming, this is a handbook of COBOL style, documentation technique and testing standards that if referenced may well save bucks and increase quality and control. While many of the chapters are typical of programming style books, I found several interesting and refreshing. The chapter entitled "Sheltering" describes techniques to protect the user from surprises. I find it heartening to see the user mentioned in a hard-core programming book. The chapter on maintenance tackles head-on another verboten topic: once a program is in production, if wellwritten, it will never need maintenance. Most programming style books give us this impression; not so here. The book is well written, light in style, heavy in topic, with a good supplementary readings list. This should be in the company library. The Data Center Disaster Consultant, by K.W. Lord Jr., QED Information Sciences, Wellesley, MA, 1977, 159 PP. A topic of increasing concern in recent years has been the protection of the physical components of computer systems and data from the unauthorized hands of man and nature. This presents little that is not common sense, little that we could not sit down ourselves and, given the time, conclude. Its contribution to the literature, however, is that it presents a rather complete and concise coverage of this important topic. The language is terse and topics are covered too quickly, but the checklists provided could be an important asset to the computer center manager. This book should be strongly considered by those interested in this topic. The Compleat Computer, being a compendium of tales of the amazing and marvelous, poetry, information news items, cartoons plus many other illustrations with a special selection of splendiferous science fiction art in full color, by D. Van Tassel, SRA, 1976, 216 pp. Most of the reviews we've seen in DATA BASE have been industrially or academically oriented and aimed at providing information to assist you in professional development. For a change, I thought it would be interesting to review a book that is written for fun reading. Dennie Van Tassel has compiled a collection of articles that cover the world of computing from computer chess to computer crime. There is something to interest everyone in this book. Most of the articles are one to three pages long. If you want to acquaint your wife or children with what you do, this is the book for it. Of particular note is Art Buchwald's "The Great Data Famine," Robert Townsend's " C o m p u t e r s and their Priests" and Computers in Science Fiction and Art. Other articles by Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Sam Ervin, Joseph Weizenbaum, A . M Turing, Herman Kahn and others will provide hours of reading enjoyment whether three pages at a time or all at once. See, Morn, computers can be fun. High Level COBOL Programming, by G. Weinberg, S. Wright, R. Kauffman, M. Goetz, Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1977, 252 pp. This is a book for those organizations or programmers who are interested in establishing, improving or verifying their DATA BASE Winter1979

Journal

ACM SIGMIS DatabaseAssociation for Computing Machinery

Published: Dec 31, 1978

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