A family of object-oriented application development software from IBM that includes VisualAge for C++, VisualAge for COBOL, VisualAge for PacBase and VisualAge for Smalltalk (VisualAge for Basic was discontinued). For example, VisualAge for C++ is a multiplatform environment for writing C++ applications for OS/2, Windows, Mac OS X, AS/400, MVS/ESA, AIX and Linux. It is widely used to write an application on one platform that will be used on another.
VisualAge for Java was another core component of the product family, so successful as the Java development environment for IBM that the company decided to combine its Java enterprise activities with its Web development applications. Thus, VisualAge for Java was folded into the WebSphere Studio product line in late 2001 (see
WebSphere).
As the term refers to several languages, the skills of a VisualAge programmer are not implicit. The VisualAge name was first used in the late 1980s for Smalltalk, then in 1994 for C++ and later for all the others. See
Smalltalk.