COBOL and Visual Basic on .NET: A Guide for the Reformed Mainframe Programmer

Mr. Richardson tells the reader in this book, "The world has changed. The .NET Framework and VS .NET is part of that change . . . and so are you." We in the application development community must deal with ever-changing technologies. We're constantly faced with new challenges to keep our programming skills current. These challenges confront us whether we're integrating legacy systems with modern (integrated Web) technologies or whether we're developing brand-new applications on PCs and/or mainframes incorporating Web services. Can we continue to keep our legacy systems running our enterprises in the midst of these emerging technologies? Or must we abandon those systems and start from scratch to take advantage of these new technologies? Can we "have our cake and eat it too"?

Yes, we can develop modern applications using COBOL, taking advantage of its superior maintainability while incorporating Web-based services into these systems as described in this book. COBOL is alive and well in the twenty-first century and its future is bright. A professor friend of mine from Purdue University, when discussing COBOL's future, likes to tell his students, "You better wear your sunglasses." There's much life still left in our legacy systems due to the myriad of integration tools available to us. And thanks to COBOL and Visual Basic on .NET: A Guide for the Reformed Mainframe Programmer, we can understand this new technology from the mainframe programmer's perspective and learn to apply it in our real lives.

Jerome Garfunkel
Woodstock, New York
February, o2003