For the last couple of months I have working on Visual Studio 2010 and this include Microsoft CLR v4 and I was recently asked how to write a test that determines at runtime which CLR is being used and what assemblies it uses. I replies would use reflection. So I dropped my friend a mega simple demo… and here it is.
$set ilusing"System.Reflection"
01 myAssembly type "Assembly".
01 usedAssemblyName type "AssemblyName".
set myAssembly to type "Assembly"::"GetExecutingAssembly"
display "My exe is " myAssembly::"FullName"
display "and is using CLR " myAssembly::"ImageRuntimeVersion"
display "and is loaded from " myAssembly::"Location"
display "the initial method of this program was "
myAssembly::"EntryPoint"::"Name"
display "This assembly references -> "
perform varying usedAssemblyName
through myAssembly::"GetReferencedAssemblies"
display "-> " usedAssemblyName
end-perform
And the output of the program is:
My exe is clrver, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
and is using CLR v2.0.50727
and is loaded from d:\clrver.exe
the initial method of this program was _MF_ENTRYThis assembly references ->
-> mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089
-> MicroFocus.COBOL.Runtime, Version=3.6.0.0, Culture=neutral,
PublicKeyToken=0412c5e0b2aaa8f0
Microsoft have just updated the “Application Architecture”. I can’t say I have read it from cover to cover but it is being downloaded to my ebook reader…
The guide helps you to:
- Understand the underlying architecture and design principles and patterns for developing successful solutions on the Microsoft platform and the .NET Framework.
- Identify appropriate strategies and design patterns that will help you design your solution’s layers, components, and services.
- Identify and address the key engineering decision points for your solution.
- Identify and address the key quality attributes and crosscutting concerns for your solution.
- Create a candidate baseline architecture for your solution.
- Choose the right technologies for your solution.
- Identify patterns & practices solution assets and further guidance that will help you to implement your solution
The guide can be downloaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ce40e4e1-9838-4c89-a197-a373b2a60df2&DisplayLang=en
Today my collegues Robert and Alex have finally 
decided to publish a document that compares Visual Basic, C# and COBOL for .Net under The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
Rather than doing a cut-paste job, here is a quote from alex, along with a link to the “real” article itself.
Enjoy.
Alex Turner said:
A Comparison Of .Net COBOL, Visual Basic and C#
Introduction
If you are a COBOL programmer wanting to learn C# or a VB programmer wanting to learn COBOL as a .net language (or any other combination of VB.net, C# and COBOL) then this is a good place to start.
Background
If you are a COBOL programmer wanting to learn C# or a VB programmer wanting to learn COBOL as a .net language (or any other combination of VB.net, C# and COBOL) then this is a good place to start.
It has often been noted that the richness of the COBOL language in its Micro Focus .net implementation is not well known. Robert Sales and I have worked on this document to help bring the language to peoples’ attention and to help people who need to work with COBOL on the .net platform.
This is a preview of
A Comparison Of .Net COBOL, Visual Basic and C#
.
Read the full post (220 words, estimated 53 secs reading time)
Continuing my series on design patterns for the COBOL, the next one on my list is the “Factory method” pattern.
The pattern is useful, as it helps you hide the real implementation/creation mechanism of your classes. I you are fond of uml… here is the actual uml (from wikipedia).
Factory Method Pattern from Wikipedia!
So… lets see the COBOL code…
interface-id. "Base".
method-id. "DoIt".
end method "DoIt".
end interface "Base".
class-id. "Derived1Impl".
object. implements type "Base".
method-id. "DoIt" public.
display "Derived1Impl from DoIt".
end method "DoIt".
end object.
end class "Derived1Impl".
class-id. "Derived2Impl".
object. implements type "Base".
method-id. "DoIt" public.
display "Derived2Impl from DoIt".
end method "DoIt".
end object.
end class "Derived2Impl".
class-id. "Factory".
object.
method-id. "GetObject".
linkage section.
01 obj-base type "Base".
procedure division using by value oType as binary-long
returning obj-base.
evaluate oType
when 1
set obj-base to new type "Derived1Impl"()
when 2
set obj-base to new type "Derived2Impl"()
when other
set obj-base to null
end method "GetObject".
end object.
end class "Factory".
class-id. "FactoryDemo".
method-id. "Main" static.
local-storage section.
01 obj-factory type "Factory".
01 base-obj type "Base".
linkage section.
01 args string occurs any.
procedure division using by value args.
set obj-factory to new type "Factory"()
set base-obj to obj-factory::"GetObject"(1)
invoke base-obj::"DoIt"()
set base-obj to obj-factory::"GetObject"(2)
invoke base-obj::"DoIt"()
end method "Main".
end class "FactoryDemo".
That was pretty straight forward… not too much pain…
And finally the code produces…
d:\> FactoryDemo.exe
Derived1Impl from DoIt
Derived2Impl from DoIt
Hello world
Time to sign off for today.. but if you would like me to continue the series on code patterns or have a particular pattern you need… drop us a line!
As part of my working life I happy to say I use COBOL and for better or worse it is here to stay. With this in mind it annoys me I here/see saying things such as
COBOL is a old language that naturally prohibits you from using modern design patterns.
rubbish I say… COBOL can be used in good ways and bad ways.
I will try and show you that COBOL can be used in a good way… lets take the “Singleton pattern“, as the first example.
First.. lets start off my creating a singleton class in csharp… so here it is:
using System.Collections;
public sealed class MySingleton {
private static readonly Hashtable sharedHashtable = new Hashtable();
// Explicit static constructor to tell C# compiler
// not to mark type as beforefieldinit
static MySingleton() {
}
private MySingleton() {
}
public static Hashtable Singleton {
get {
return sharedHashtable;
}
}
}
Not too shabby.. but lets see what we can do in COBOL…
$set ilusing"System.Collections"
class-id. "MySingleton".
01 shared-hashtable type "Hashtable"
static property as "Singleton" with no set.
method-id. "New" static.
set shared-hashtable to new type "Hashtable"
end method "New".
What… COBOL is smaller… that can’t be true… sorry but it is…
To complete the example… lets use it…
*> Add two items to the single hashtable
invoke type "MySingleton"::"Singleton"::
"Add"("01234567","Ian")
invoke type "MySingleton"::"Singleton"::
"Add"("987654321","Stephen")
*> Now get one of the items of the singleton
display "Account 01234567 - Contains: "
type "MySingleton"::"Singleton"::"Item"("01234567")
And I am sure some people… will say sure… this is really true… it is… here is it running..
c:\temp> cobol MySingleton.cbl ilgen(sub);
c:\temp> cobol UseSingleton.cbl ilgen ilref"MySingleton.dll";
c:\temp> UseSingleton.exe
Account 01234567 - Contains: Ian
c:\temp> csc MySingleton.cs /target:library
c:\temp> UseSingleton.exe
Account 01234567 - Contains: Ian
Now it seems to me that COBOL is being under rated… perhaps someone should shout about it!
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