Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Objectives By completing this subject students should be able to appreciate the basic needs of commercial programming; understand the semantics and syntax of COBOL; conduct batch processing tasks including report generation; and acquire a programming style suitable for the business environment.
Synopsis This subject introduces students to the fundamentals of commercial programming. The semantics and syntax of the most widely used commercial language, COBOL, are studied in detail. Modern programming methodologies such as structured programming, top-down code development and testing will be discussed. The most common batch processing tasks will be introduced by example including report generation, control break processing, sequential and non sequential master file updating and table processing. The acquisition of a clean, structured, error-free programming style will be emphasised.
Assessment Programming assignment: 25% + Examination (2 hours): 75%