When people talk about the mainframe skills gap, they often frame it in the context of programmers, architects, and system administrators not knowing the languages that are native to these machines. And invariably it comes back to a perception that it is impossible to run IBM Z environment without knowing languages that haven't been taught in universities in more than 40 years. But is that really the issue? So how did we get here, and more importantly, what do we do about it?

Mainframe software development is on the brink of transformation thanks to the latest innovation from Izzi Software. The company, a leader in debugging solutions for IBM mainframe environments, has announced the general availability of Z/XDC V3.1 with an extension for Visual Studio Code. This development is set to modernize mainframe debugging by integrating the most powerful mainframe debugger into Visual Studio Code, the world's most popular integrated development environment.

New expansion to top debugging now available, integrating seamlessly into existing workflows and supporting young programmers by improving accessibility MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Izzi Software, owner of ColeSoft, the leading provider of debugging solutions for IBM mainframe environments, is proud to announce its industry-leading Z/XDC debugging software is now widely available on Visual Studio Code (VS Code), the world's most popular development environment. The millions of developers who already depend on VS Code IDE can now leverage the most powerful interactive mainframe debugger on the market as ColeSoft redefines mainframe development for the next generation.

we have started publishing z/XDC's Built-in Help as web pages that are far more user friendly than z/XDC's classic HELP command. The pages contain the same topics as the classic Built-in Help, but they have several additional features:

The XDCADATA utility filters ADATA files to remove excess ADATA. When properly set up, size reductions up to 90% or more could be achieved. Two changes have been made, one to make it easier to identify DSECT maps to be excluded, the other to increase the size reduction even more!

Starting with update DBC-2302H, c/XDC users will notice two things: They will quickly notice that the CWIDE and C80 profiles no longer display a LIST VSTACK command in their Watch Window. They will also notice that STEP commands (PF9, PF10 and PF11) no longer perform sluggishly. These two facts are related.

Just as classic z/XDC can access dataspaces in live storage, so can dump/XDC access dataspaces contained within a dump. Also like classic z/XDC, dump/XDC uses ALETs for accessing dataspaces.

At long last, we have turned our attention to the long languishing LIST RSA command and brought it forward into the modern era!

We have made major changes to the processes for performing both maintenance updates and initial product installs: WRT initial installs, we have completely done away with the use of SMP/E. Now the process is a straightforward unTERSE of an XMITs collection library followed by an XMIT-RECEIVEs job to create the several Product Libraries. WRT maintenance updates, these now do full replacements of all Product Library content. This means that the product shipment package for both initial installs and maintenance updates is the identically the same file for both purposes.

Update DBC-2207D fixes a major performance bug in z/XDC. We urge all customers to download and install the fix as soon as possible...