Lionel, respectfully I must disagree. I have been using the IBM Zxplore
website on my own time for over a year now for enhanced learning of some of the
"new" technologies available on our mainframe systems, and I have been
consistently surprised to observe the actual difficulties that genuine
newcomers to mainframe systems have with many fundamental concepts that we take
for granted. The "almost tree-like (but not really)" structure of mainframe
datasets and the use (and mis-use) of JCL seem to be the most frequent cause of
misunderstanding and errors, along with learning to read and understand the
messages generated from a batch job or utility execution.
It isn't the client-side tool interface (VSCode vs TSO/ISPF) that gives most of
the newcomers fits, they seem to pick that up without too many problems. It's
the fundamental system operational differences that make it harder for them to
grasp, at least at first.
OTOH, the VSCode/ZOWE interfaces were (for me anyway) easy to learn and
understand. Sometimes annoying to use but very effective. Especially Zowe
utilities at a command prompt, the help features are annoyingly verbose though
very helpful when you first start using them.
But all these open tools are only scratching the surface. The real deal costs
real money, because a Windows/Linux client cannot do dynamic
compilation/binding/debugging on the mainframe without paid packages from IBM
or other vendor add-on products. At this point in time the best you can offer
with open-source tools is batch job submission to compile and bind and execute,
and review the batch job output in the VSCode client instead of in TSO/ISPF.
I'm not sure that is enough of a win to make it into a CIO's TODO list,
especially when you add the DASD increment to supply all developers with large
enough z/OS Unix file systems to do their work in the "new way" because that's
a "real money" addition to the cost of operation.
And forget about CI/CD tool chains. The CI/CD tool vendors seem to all be
using the "normal" IBM and large ISV pricing schemes (i.e., lots of money) for
mainframe versions of those tools. Another (big!) minus in the CIO's view.
The other issue is CPU usage in today's frequently-CPU-constrained-due-to-cost
mainframe shops. In solving some of the Zxplore "challenges" (exercises to
learn a feature or tool), many times the challenge solutions prove over and
over that the performance of z/OS Unix tools lags far behind the "regular"
mainframe tools like Rexx in the performance area, sometimes by large factors
(ZOAU tools in particular are real CPU hogs, and the DB2 Command Line Interface
tool as well). Python on the mainframe is pretty good, but still can't beat
out Rexx in performance even when the Rex script needs to use BPXWUNIX and
friends to access z/OS Unix file systems, and both python and Rexx often beat
shell-scripted solution performance by several multiples. Again not a plus
when trying to get into a CIO's TODO list.
And that's my USD$0.02 worth.
Peter
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
Lionel B. Dyck
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2023 9:22 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: zOSMF and zOWE for non-mainframers
Just my $0.01 (not worth $0.02).
These developers who want/need access to z/OS and don't want to learn how to
work with z/OS, don't they learn new things all the time - new IDE's, different
operating systems (windows, macos, flavors of linux, unix, ...)? IMHO it is
easier to learn the TSO/ISPF interface than some of the distributed interfaces
(which change in small to large ways with upgrades).
Just my curmudgeonly opinion after struggling with some challenges with using
VSCode last weekend.
Lionel B. Dyck <><
Website:
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Github:
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-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
Bill Giannelli
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2023 8:02 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: zOSMF and zOWE for non-mainframers
So I hope you all dont mind a general question...........
We have the common struggle of dealing with non-mainframe developers accessing
z/OS (programs, jobs, DB2) and an attitude that we need to leave the mainframe.
In trying to leverage our z/OS environment, might ZOWE (and the required zOSMF)
provide a better transition and/or "access" to z/OS "processes"?
We do not have zOSMF and ZOWE implemented. I was wondering if it may be worth
while to do so.
I hope my question makes sense.
thanks
Bill
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