Development Approaches

AcuBench supports a wide variety of approaches to developing and maintaining COBOL applications. The approach that you use is determined by the set of workbench tools you employ, the needs of your application, and your approach to software development. If you plan to use workbench tools that automatically generate code, such as the Screen Designer and File Designer, some elements of your program's content and structure are determined by the methods used by those tools. For a description of the workbench's approach to automated code generation, see Automatic Code Generation.

The following sections discuss general development approaches. Included in each discussion are specific instructions on how to establish a workbench project that best supports that development approach.

The first section focuses on applications that are new or migrating to AcuBench, and that intend to make use of the workbench's automated code generation tools.

The second section focuses on the traditional development approach, which foregoes the use of any of the workbench's automated code generation facilities (no use of the Screen Designer, File Designer, Data Set Designer, Working Storage Editor, Linkage Editor, or Event Editor). The developer must write every line of application code. This approach does not restrict the use of non-code generating workbench facilities in any way.

The third section provides additional tips for developers working with large applications, made up of a great many programs and COPY files. It focuses on maximizing performance while taking advantage of AcuBench's code generation tools.