Cheryl's Link
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- November 6, 1998
The IBM COBOL Family Website provides some real gems of information that makes it worth exploring. One of the more important items can be found on the first page: IBM VisualAge Millennium Language Extensions (MLE). MLE provides a way to do automated date windowing in your current COBOL programs with much less effort than most people are using. (We discussed MLE in our TUNING Letter, 1998 No. 3, page 30.) On the COBOL home page, you'll find several pointers to MLE documentation, including a demo and sample code. If you're behind on your Y2K conversion, this could be a good option.
Other pages can be linked to from the buttons on the right. Here are some things you shouldn't miss:
NEWS - contains announcements and, more importantly, the full set of IBM COBOL Newsletters. These are free newsletters that provide an excellent source of up-to-date information. For example, the Fall 1997 issue contains more on MLE and a discussion of MQSeries; the Summer 97 issue has a good article on COBOL names, releases, and service info; and in the archives, issue #4 gives an update on the Report Writer. Print them all and distribute to your COBOL developers - they'll appreciate them.
DOWNLOADS - provides FixPaks for VisualAge COBOL. If you click on 'more downloads', you'll go to the Application Development Software Download Zone with downloads for Java, NetObjects, and much more.
LIBRARY - contains some of the more worthwhile information on the site. It provides easy access to COBOL fact sheets, all COBOL manuals, and the COBOL Family Resource Catalog. You'll find FAQs here, and while most are oriented toward VisualAge COBOL, I found lots of info on host COBOL as well. You'll also find two excellent papers on COBOL performance tuning. Why not tune while you're putting in Y2K changes?
Other pages include:
PARTNERS - consulting and education services from IBM and others
SOLUTIONS - what other companies are doing, by industry type
EDUCATION - in-class and online courses
EVENTS - upcoming conferences and miscellaneous items
SHOP - telephone numbers for buying VisualAge COBOL and other tools
One more important link is the icon on the right labeled VisualAge 2000. This leads to a recently updated site that is devoted to Y2K and VisualAge solutions. In fact, several of the links from the COBOL home page lead to the VisualAge 2000 site. Be sure to check out the Library link from the VisualAge 2000 site. You'll find many useful white papers and manuals. The three presentations listed here have been given by Tom Ross at recent user conferences and are especially important to COBOL users. Don't miss them!
Since many sites are still in the middle of their Y2K migration, it's important to be as up-to-date as possible on COBOL and COBOL tuning issues. This site provides much of what you'll need.
Many thanks to Webmaster Fariba Sadri and the COBOL Information Development Team for a very worthwhile site on the Web.