Murach's CICS Desk Reference
by Doug Lowe and Raul Menendez
14 units, 592 pages
ISBN-10: 1-890774-17-0; ISBN-13: 978-1-890774-17-2
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When Doug Lowe wrote this book, he tried to assemble
all the information that you need every day as you develop
CICS programs. That way, he reasoned, you would only
need the IBM documentation for those cases that went
way beyond the ordinary. Our customers seemed to like
that logic because this book quickly became a bestseller.
Then, when Raul Menendez revised the book, he kept
that perspective as he added new material and dropped
material that is no longer useful. So now, you’ll
find familiar material on BMS macro instructions and
CICS commands. But you’ll also find new material,
like 30 more CICS commands, the macros you need for
creating HTML documents from BMS mapsets, and guidelines
for designing and writing CICS programs so the user
interface can easily be changed without changing the
business logic.
If you check the table of contents, you’ll find
that this book consists of 14 units, some short, some
long. But the focus of each is to provide you with information
that will help you work faster and better as you develop
CICS/COBOL applications. Some highlights follow.
- Units 1 and 2 summarize some design and programming
guidelines for CICS programs. If you adhere to these
methods, you will work more productively, your programs
will run more efficiently, and your programs will
be easier to debug and maintain.
- Units 3 and 4 contain the information you need to
compile, test, and debug CICS programs, including
how to plan the testing phase, how to use CEDF, and
a description of the most common abend codes.
- Unit 5 presents two versions of a model maintenance
program. The first one presents traditional design
and coding techniques (the ones you’re likely
to find when you’re maintaining old programs).
The second one presents modern design and coding techniques
that separate the presentation logic from the business
logic (these are the ones you may want to implement
as you enhance old programs or develop new ones).
- Unit 6 presents model programs for three other types
of programs: a menu program, an inquiry program, and
an order entry program. When combined with the programs
in unit 5, this gives you a wealth of design and code
that you can copy as you develop your own programs.
- Units 7 and 8 provide detailed reference information
for coding CICS commands. Here, you’ll find syntax
diagrams along with explanations of options, exceptional
conditions, and coding considerations for 121 CICS
commands. You’ll also find coding examples that
show you how to use these commands in their proper
context. In terms of software releases, these commands
cover up through CICS TS 2.2.
- Units 9 and 10 give you the same type of reference
information for coding BMS mapsets. After unit 9 presents
syntax, examples, and guidelines for coding BMS mapsets
for 3270 displays, unit 10 shows you how to assemble
your BMS mapsets into HTML templates so they can be
displayed in a web browser.
- Units 11 through 13 present information that helps
you work more effectively in the CICS environment.
This includes how to use: Access Method Services (AMS,
or IDCAMS) to define and manipulate VSAM files, RDO
to define resources for an application in a CICS test
region, and the master terminal transaction (CEMT)
as well as several other CICS-supplied transactions.
- Unit 14 presents reference tables that come in handy
during many phases of program development: hexadecimal
conversion tables, the EBCDIC character set, and so
on.
Pair this book with our CICS tutorial, Murach’s
CICS for the COBOL Programmer, and you’ve got a
CICS library that saves you research time, day in and
day out.
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