- IBM VisualAge
Infobox_Software
name = VisualAge
caption =
collapsible =
developer =IBM
latest_release_version =
latest_release_date =
latest_preview_version =
latest_preview_date =
operating_system =Cross-platform
language = Multilingual
programming_language =
genre =Software development
license = Commercial
website = http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/vacpp/VisualAge was the name of a family of computer
integrated development environment s fromIBM , which included support for a few popular (and not so popular) computerprogramming languages .Early history
VisualAge was born in the IBM development lab in
Cary, North Carolina . The Cary lab was established in1984 and staffed at the time primarily with IBM employees transferred fromPoughkeepsie, New York . The Lab had responsibility for application development tools. The EZ View dialog manager product, a personal computer derivative of the user interface elements of the ISPF 327x product was one of the products. The lab also had a group which was one of the early adopters ofobject-oriented programming technologies within IBM using an internally developed language calledClassC to develop applications with more sophisticatedgraphical user interface s which were just starting to be widely available.Eventually, with the availability of usable implementations of
Smalltalk in forIBM PC -AT class machines allowed IBM advanced technology projects experiment with Smalltalk. At about the same time, visual interface construction tools were coming up on the radar screens. Smalltalk research projects such asInterCons byDavid N. Smith ofIBM , andFabrik by a team at Apple led byDan Ingalls were building interactive graphical applications built from composition of graphical primitives. Higher level construction of user interfaces was evidenced by other tools such as Jean Marie Hulot's interface builder first done in Lisp and then evolved to become theNeXT interface builder tool inNeXTStep which allowed for building user interfaces by WYSIWYG composition of UI widgets which could be "wired" to each other and to application logic written inObjective-C .The original prototype which led to VisualAge was the implementation of an interface builder like tool within theSmalltalk/V development environment. By the time VisualAge was released as a product, much more emphasis was placed on visual construction of application logic as well as of the user interface. This emphasis was in part due to the "positioning" for "strategic" reasons of Smalltalk as a generator rather than a language within IBM'sSystem Application Architecture .The VisualAge Name
The name VisualAge was the result of a contest between the members of the development team.After the initial release of VisualAge/Smalltalk the name VisualAge became a brand of its own and VisualAges were produced for several different combinations of languages and platforms.
Languages (not every language is available on every platform listed):
*BASIC
*COBOL
*C
*C++
*Enterprise Generation Language (EGL)
*Fortran
*Java
*Pacbase
*PL/I
*RPG
*TPF
*Smalltalk Platforms:
*AIX operating system
*OS/2
*i5/OS (Formerly known asOS/400 )
*Linux
*Mac OS X
*Microsoft Windows
*z/VM
*z/OS (Formerly known asOS/390 ,MVS )
*z/VSE Evolution
Most of the members of the VisualAge family were written in Smalltalk no matter which language they supported for development. The IBM implementation of Smalltalk was produced by
Object Technology International which was acquired by IBM and run as a wholly owned subsidiary for several years before being absorbed into the overall IBM organization.VisualAge for Java was based on an extended Smalltalk
virtual machine which executed both Smalltalk and Javabyte code s. Java natives were actually implemented in Smalltalk.VisualAge Micro Edition, which supported development of embedded Java applications and cross system development, was a reimplementation of the IDE in Java. This version of VisualAge morphed into the Eclipse Framework.
VisualAge is no longer available. Various members of the family have been replaced by products in the
WebSphere Studio family of products. The original VisualAge product (VisualAge for Smalltalk) was licensed by IBM toInstantiations , and the current version is calledVA Smalltalk . The C, C++ and Fortran compiler on AIX, Linux and z/OS are renamed asXL compiler series.External links
* [http://nobleeightfoldpath.com/wiki/wikipacbase VisualAge Pacbase user guide]
* [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?VisualAge Description] from Portland Pattern Repository
* [http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/vaes/ VisualAge Enterprise Suite]
* [http://www.instantiations.com/VAST/default.htm VA Smalltalk at Instantiations]
* [http://www.javadude.com/vaj/ VisualAge for Java Tips and Tricks]
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