Do I have to know OO COBOL to use NetCOBOL for .NET?
Not necessarily. NetCOBOL for .NET allows you to compile non-OO COBOL programs and execute these in the Common Language Runtime (CLR). If you want to communicate with .NET programs written in other languages, or take advantage of the support provided in .NET Framework classes, it will be necessary to understand a number of OO concepts and how they are supported in NetCOBOL for .NET. When compiling non-OO COBOL programs, for example when using NetCOBOL for .NET as part of a COBOL migration solution, the NetCOBOL system packages your standard COBOL program in this OO environment as a static method, called “Procedure,” of a class with your program’s PROGRAM-ID name. This means that you can call a traditional COBOL program in an OO manner, using the PROGRAM-ID as the class name and “Procedure” as the method name.
