Eighty three days. That is how long it has been since I posted
What's new in IBM Developer for z/OS V14.2.2. It feels like a lifetime ago. Back in March I was certainly aware of the virus and the impact an outbreak could have at the local level, but at that time I had no idea that COVID-19 would turn into a global pandemic. Business as usual is a thing of the past, and everyone I talk to is working and living much differently than they were just eighty three days ago. While most companies are having their employees work from home, some companies are enforcing a furlough, but others are trying their best not to miss a beat. I know one such company has recently hired a dozen new mainframe application developers from local colleges and universities.
Wazi Development Client
Whether your company has also recently hired a fresh crop of graduates, or whether you will be looking to hire
new Z talent in the future to keep your mission critical applications running, we have just released some new tooling those
"new to Z" developers will truly enjoy. Wazi Development Client version 1.0.0 was created to make it easier to onboard new developers to the IBM Z platform. It is built as a set of
VS Code extensions, so it not only runs on open source but it also integrates with common open source tooling such as Git and
Zowe Explorer. Why VS Code? It's extensible, and due to the built in support for Git, JavaScript, TypeScript and Node.js it has become very popular with new developers.
Wazi Development Client enables essential
edit,
user build and
debug capabilities for z/OS application developers. Modern editors for COBOL, JCL, Assembler and PL/I provide provide syntax highlighting, declaration hovering, code completion, snippets, copybook previews and even an outline view for quick source code navigation. Once source code modification is complete users can build their application programs using integration with IBM Dependency Based Build (DBB). No matter which development tool an application developer uses they still make mistakes in their programming logic. That is when a good debugger becomes necessary. Wazi Development Client provides mainframe application debugging through the IBM z/OS Debugger. The same, time tested, debugger used by IBM Developer for z/OS (IDz) and IBM Debug for z/OS. Not only that but the Wazi Development Client also provides access to Z resources such as MVS, USS and JES through another time tested technology shared by IDz known as Remote Systems Explorer (RSE). For more information about how this is possible see the blog
Introducing IBM Remote System Explorer API.
Speaking of IDz, isn't this an IDz blog? Well yes it is. And as we
announced just a few days ago, if you own IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition (IDzEE) v14.2.3 then you are entitled to support for the new Wazi Development Client v1.0.0 as well. This pairing provides organizations with the ability to offer freedom of choice to their developers. Allowing them to feel comfortable with their choice of editors and still benefit from the increased productivity provided by modern tooling. Click the VS Code link for IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition on the
downloads page to get started.
Technology Preview
IBM Developer for z/OS V14.2.2 introduced the Duplicate Code Detection (DCD) technology preview. This "compelling technology" as it was
described in a blog by Bob Reselman of DevOps.com was only just the beginning. Version 14.2.3 of IDz provides a refresh of this component based on early feedback from our user community. In this update we have made it easy to preview the duplicated code by showing a snippet of the code in the Duplicates table, thus eliminating the need to open it with an editor in order to get a glimpse of the code. We also significantly improved the performance when finding duplicates among very large code bases. Finally, we added the ability to search for code duplication in an IBM Engineering Workflow Management (EWM) source code management system. For more details about these latest DCD updates, see
What's new in Duplicate Code Detection technology preview and a new
video.
If you use Installation Manager to install or update IDz, and you want to try the new technology preview, then make sure to select the Duplicate Code Detection [Technology Preview] option on the Features panel. In order to share your feedback with us
login to the DCD Early Program site and then
Submit comments here.
Requests For Enhancement
With each update of IDz we select some Requests For Enhancement (RFE) from our user community and include them as product improvements. We are certainly grateful for such a strong global user community and the feedback we receive. Thank you! IBM Developer for z/OS version 14.2.3 adds the following user submitted RFEs:
- Automatically recall migrated SYSLIB data sets.
This new preference allows for data sets that have been previously migrated to be automatically recalled during dependency resolution when a source file that references them is opened in the editor.
- System Z LPEX uppercase PL/I statements and variables.
The System Z LPEX editor has previously support uppercase actions and preferences for COBOL and JCL. With this latest update similar capabilities have been added for PL/I.
- PL/I Editor code folding.
Previously only PROCEDURE blocks could be expanded/collapsed (folding). A new preference has been added to also include the following code blocks for folding: IF, ELSE, DO, SELECT, WHEN, OTHERWISE, PACKAGE, BEGIN and PROCEDURE blocks.
- Find text within a copybook/include hover.
Sometimes the contents of a copybook/include file can be rather lengthy. And you may only want to double check a value within those contents. Now instead of having to open the copybook/include separately, you can use the new Find Text box in the hover winder to locate the text in the contents without opening the file in another editor.
General improvements
Not only is IDz 14.2.3 becoming generally available (GA) today, but CICS 5.6 is also GA today. The editors and debugger in IDz have already added support for the new CICS 5.6 syntax, so when you are ready to start using it in your organization just make sure you are running IDz 14.2.3 or higher. Likewise the CICS Explorer version that is embedded within IDz has been refreshed to version 5.4.0.18 so that it can be used to connect to CICS 5.6 regions. As part of the
CICS 5.6 announcement, you might notice that the Service Flow Runtime has been stabilized, therefore the Service Flow Modeler tooling in IDz has also been deprecated.
When you start IDz 14.2.3 with a new workspace you might notice a few changes to the z/OS Projects perspective. If you choose to have EGit installed then you will see that the two most frequently used EGit views, Git Repositories and Git Staging, are now part of the z/OS Projects perspective by default. Likewise if you choose to install the EWM Integration plugins then you will see that the two most frequently used EWM views for application developers, Team Artifacts and Pending Changes, are now part of the z/OS Projects perspective by default. Finally, since the z/OS Debugger Profiles view is the primary view used by developers who want to setup a debug session, this view is also now part of the z/OS Projects perspective by default. For more information about the z/OS Debugger Profiles view and other debug related improvements see
What’s new in IBM z/OS Debugger V14.2.3.
Of course all these aforementioned
view changes are just the new defaults. Any view can be added, removed or
rearranged in a perspective and
perspectives can be saved with whatever layout you are most comfortable using.
A popular feature for users of the Host Connection Emulator (HCE) is enabling crosshairs via the Ctrl+Home shortcut key. However, some users either do not have a Home key or would prefer to override this key sequence to some other shortcut that they prefer. The HCE key binding is now configurable in Preferences > General > Keys by updating the [rule] command.
z/OS Automated Unit Testing Framework (ZUnit)
With the popularity of shift left testing and the use of DevOps pipelines, the z/OS Automated Unit Testing Framework (ZUnit) continues to be a focus area for IDz enhancements. The latest improvements in this area include recording data used in a Batch Db2 program so that test cases can be quickly created. Similar to the existing ZUnit CICS support, these test cases can then be run repeatedly without the need for the subsystem. Since the IBM z/OS Dynamic Test Runner stubs out all interactions with Db2 there is no need to rollback each insert or update after each automated test run. For additional details about these ZUnit updates, and more, see
What’s new with ZUnit this Summer.
Conclusion
As we all figure out this new normal way of working please know that the IDz team is looking for new ways to stay connected with our user community. As always, feel free to add comments to our blogs and let us know your thoughts. If you have an idea for a new product feature or an improvement to an existing feature, go to the
RFE Community and submit a Request For Enhancement. While
scientists and supercomputers attempt to find a way to defeat the virus I hope that all of you and your families are able to stay safe and stay healthy.