Legacy integration-changing perspectives [Cobol]

Dusty Cobol card decks, difficult-to-maintain programs, and software generally incompatible with current state-of-the-art application frameworks: that's legacy. Or is it? Start with the cleansing effect of Y2K, add the Internet and e-commerce, and throw in component technologies such as Corba, COM, and Enterprise JavaBeans, the standardization effort behind XML, and the resurgent interest in data, and you'll find new meaning and vitality for the term legacy. Estimated at over 100 billion lines of code, most of it Cobol, it drives the world's infrastructure. The end result is a new appreciation of legacy and a search for ways to capitalize on its potential. Cobol programs and data are being viewed in a new positive light with options for interconnection and integration for both code and data.