Real Software and Veryant are upgrading development tools this week, with Real Software focused on its RealBasic platform and Veryant on Cobol.

Real Software is shipping RealBasic 2008 Release 3 on Tuesday, featuring an Attributes capability in which developers can specify compile-time metadata.

RealBasic is a cross-platform development environment for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It features the RBscript scripting language. Also included in Release 3 is an update to the language's project analyzer to include warnings of deprecated functionality and other code issues. Deprecated functionality refers to features no longer actively in development.

An integrated code profiler in the product allows programmers to track performance issues within their applications. Other features include the ability to add types within classes and capabilities and improvements to the platform's introspection functionality.

Veryant is offering isCobol Application Platform Suite 2008 for developing and modernizing Cobol applications.

Featured in the product is a compiler that outputs Java byte code, enabling Cobol applications to be deployed on any platform that can run a Java virtual machine. Such platforms as AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Windows, and Linux are supported.

Developers can write applications in Cobol or take existing Cobol applications and recompile them for use on different platforms. These applications also can be used in Web services and SOA environments as well as the Web.

"It's a tool that's used by Cobol programmers to compile their programs into executable code," said Dovid Lubin, vice president of technical operations at Veryant.

Featured in the new version are improved performance and compatibility features for applications written in IBM Cobol, AccuCobol, or Micro Focus Cobol. These enhancements making it easier to recompile those applications. Micro Focus also has been emphasizing application modernization, forging an alliance with Microsoft this month.

Also included in the suite is isCobol Web Direct, which generates HTML and JavaScript to put a Cobol UI inside a Web browser. "It allows you to bring a Cobol application to the Web without leaving Cobol," Lubin said.

A date and time selection capability has been added to Web Direct in the new release as well as more capabilities to detect user interface interactions.