Then this is the book you are looking for.

Chris Richardson takes you from the ground up – actually he starts below the ground, by first of all establishing the foundations on which your .NET understanding is to be built. For nearly every .NET concept he gives a mainframe technological analogy, where necessary describing how the mainframe technology can be extended to give very similar structures to the .NET framework. By using this technique, Richardson makes what is new and strange into something that is easy to understand and familiar.

Examples are usually duplicated in both Visual Basic for .NET and NetCOBOL for .NET allowing the readers to see the similarities and differences between the two languages and deepen their understanding of the concepts involved.

Richardson's descriptive style makes for easy reading away from the computer – though you'll likely want to check examples out on your PC from time to time. As you work your way through the book you will realize you are gaining a very thorough understanding of what .NET is all about and how you can use your mainframe (COBOL) skills in one of the newest application environments.

Our engineers who were given early copies, and who are experienced with .NET, commented that they were enjoying the book and learning useful information even from the first few chapters.

Although NetCOBOL for .NET will certainly be useful in reading this book it is not essential – buy a copy of the book today and see if you are ready to be reformed! For a more detailed description see the write-up at the publisher's (Apress) site.