Murach's CICS Desk Reference

Rating:
Summary: Written especially for experienced CICS/COBOL programmers
Review: Collaboratively written by CICS programmer and expert Raul Menendez with the assistance of Doug Lowe, Murach's CICS Desk Reference is a solid and accessible resource for CICS/COBOL programmers. Individual chapters cover useful programming guidelines for creating and debugging readable, well-formatted code; syntax and option descriptions for 121 CICS commands; Basic Mapping Support macros; CICS program development aids for working with VSAM files, using RDO, using Master Terminal Transaction, and more. A "user friendly", information-packed resource filled cover to cover with sample code, examples, tips, tricks, and techniques, Murach's CICS Desk Reference is an excellent and recommended guide written especially for experienced CICS/COBOL programmers looking to save time and headaches when they need to look up reliable information quickly.

Rating:
Summary: excellent book to learn CICS for the web
Review: This is the fourth of Murach's books to find a permanent place on my bookshelf. Most technical books I read once and pass on to the public library. I kept these books because it's so easy to quickly find in them what I need -- and yet they are very complete. Everything is here in one book.

Each CICS command is laid out in a set format: function, syntax, options, exceptional conditions, notes & tips and a coding example. Most of them fit on two pages and you have everything you need to use the command in one location.

The book covers traditional items, such as BMS maps, VSAM files, and CICS service transactions, such as CEDF and CEMT. It also has a nice section explaining how to code programs that have a web interface, including how to generate and manipulate HTML documents.

I was also pleased to see that the occasional places where C programs behave differently from COBOL programs were documented. That's the kind of detail most books on CICS don't bother to mention, which can be very frustrating. But I couldn't find anything that was missing from this book.