This tutorial will present a critical appraisal of the current standards proposals for COBOL 2002, including object-orientation and Web technology. All O-O criteria, including the principles of encapsulation, uniform access and design by contract, will be reviewed in detail for the proposed standard, and the implementations available at this moment. The integration of Object-Oriented COBOL with legacy systems as well as other O-O-languages, such as Java and Eiffel, will be presented using case studies. Traditional principles of structured programming in COBOL will be discussed in view of their relevance in O-O COBOL.
After this tutorial, participants will have a good view on the state-of-the-art of O-O COBOL and its position in industry.
No detailed O-O COBOL knowledge is required to attend this tutorial, as the notes will contain the concepts that are used.'