Mainframe Access

Hi,

I am trying to get back into COBOL and Mainframes -- for those who knows me, I am alive, and I am back! -- , it's been a while since I used Visual COBOL, I remember a few years back there was an Enterprise Edition/Suite that came with a lot of tools that would run CICS, connect to mainframe, a 3270 emulator, etc.

What's the lay of the land today? and has there been any significant updates to the OO side of COBOL? Does MF COBOL support the most recent updates in the COBOL compiler, and new Syntax for JSON, Message Queues etc.

Thanks

The Enterprise Developer product line, which is a superset of Visual COBOL provides the mainframe compatibility tools that you are seeking.

The product description is:
Enterprise Developer supports IBM COBOL, IBM PL/I, IBM Assembler, IBM CICS, IBM IMS, IBM JCL, IBM DB2, IBM z/OS file formats and common batch utilities, including SORT. This means that you can develop and maintain the core mainframe online and batch applications under Enterprise Developer. You can then deploy these applications back on the mainframe or migrate them onto one of the Micro Focus Linux, UNIX or Windows-based production platforms.

There is a separate Forum on this Community Site for the Enterprise products and it would be best to ask your questions there or contact your Micro Focus Account Manager to get an evaluation copy. You can also take a look at the product information on the microfocus.com web site here.

JSON support thru the JSON PARSE and JSON GENERATE statements are provided in both Visual COBOL and Enterprise Developer products V5.0.

We have made significant changes to OO COBOL when compiling for managed code, either JVM or .NET and we have simplified its usage especially when interfacing directly to the Java or .NET Frameworks.

There are a number of samples for both mainframe support (if installing ED) and OO programming included in the Samples Browser which is accessible from the Windows Start menu.