mainframes

I bought "COBOL and Visual Basic on .NET" in order to learn VB.NET, but ended up receiving formal training through my employer before completing this 1,000 page book. Nevertheless, I constantly find myself referring to various chapters whenever my old COBOL brain has trouble understanding .NET and object oriented concepts.
Mr. Richardson's clear writing (despite his well-intentioned attempts at humor) and numerous examples make me very glad that I made the purchase. As long as COBOL and .NET exist, this book is a must-have for programmers like me. Speaking of existence, I bet that COBOL will be with us long after Mr. Gates pulls the plug on .NET.
If you are or have been a mainframe programmer and whether or not you know anything about .NET, you will be hard pressed to find a book as useful as this or one that is so well written.

Someone finally built a bridge to help mainframe programmers understand Windows and the Windows programming arena. While this book targets the mainframe COBOL programmer, it is none-the-less and good reference for those of us who have worked in the Windows arena, specifically .NET.

Chris dove into the .NET Framework with the understanding that after having rad his book you would have a good general understanding of .NET, not an indepth, "let's drown'em with a firehose" manual. Chris provided me with enough information to enable me to learn about the Framework, COBOL and areas where additional information could be found. If I wanted to read further I knew where to look. Chris's style was witty, funny and kept me entertained while I learned.

The .NET Framework is a huge undertaking in programming. With over 5,000 namespaces Chris covered the essentials to getting going in the Framework, giving the reader enough knowledge to reduce his/her search times and find the information in the Microsoft help files they may need.

A good read for anyone starting out in the .NET COBOL environment.

Comparing / contrasting JES to the CLR, then Object Oriented to JCL...I love that! And it's so perfect and makes so much sense. This book is perfect as an introduction to the world of .NET for the Mainframe programmer.

I have written in a few books and hundreds of magazine articles, but I have always maintained I'm just a technology guy who writes. Clearly, Chris Richardson is a real writer. And his editor(s) have done a wonderful job. This book is written like a novel. Most technology books are written mostly as reference. This book makes for a very interesting read...especially for those of us with a mainframe background. After reading this book, the COBOL programmer has obtained enough foundation in .NET, related back to the world he/she is comfortable in (mainframes), to take the next step and dive into more generic .NET titles and some real .NET application programming.

For years my problem has been figuring out how to convert the fantastic amount of talent on the mainframe side of the world to the current technology set so that I can hire them. As everyone knows, this is a brutally tough transition and the learning curve is almost insurmountable. Well, this book is a must for the mainframe programmer who wants to learn application development in .NET and very entertaining for us old guys who love to look back at the way it was.