Welcome to our first dive into COBOL programming! In this lesson, you'll write your very first COBOL program. We'll look at the basic structure of a COBOL program and learn how to display text on the screen.
Understanding the structure and basic commands is your foundation for all future COBOL programming. By the end of this lesson, you'll have a solid grasp of how to structure your COBOL code and generate output. Let's get coding!
COBOL is a high-level programming language that was designed for business applications. It's been around since the late 1950s and is still widely used today. COBOL is known for its readability and self-documenting code, making it easy to understand and maintain. COBOL code is first compiled using a COBOL compiler and then executed on a mainframe or other compatible system. It's a powerful language that's used in many critical systems, such as banking, insurance, and government applications.
In this lesson, we will cover the basic structure of a COBOL program and focus on how to use the DISPLAY statement. Here’s a breakdown of what we'll explore:
- Program Structure: Understanding the key divisions in a COBOL program.
- Comments: Learning how to add comments to your code.
- Display Statement: Using the
DISPLAYstatement to show text on the screen.
Here's the complete code we'll be working with:
