Peter, We share more than a first name. I agree with your point that "new blood" thinking needs to happen for this environment to survive.
I also agree that cooperative development of freeware tools would be "A Good Thing(TM)". However, where is the freeware interface to the build process on the mainframe? Whose mainframe can the build be performed on? Can it be customized by user to build on their own private mainframe? Eclipse (which I gather in its non-IBM-enhanced form is open source and free) may interface to z/OS Unix Services without charge, but can it submit a batch compile and return all of the results to the workstation and/or to an off-z/OS repository? Can build versions that were built on different versions/releases of the mainframe OS be tracked and stored separately? There are a lot of questions like that which need answers before any adoption can or will happen. Just having a cooperative writing and modification and documentation and bug-tracking environment doesn't help if you cannot build and install. Some of the interfaces that have been suggested are large-$ software on the z/OS side. I have seen quotes of USD$5K per seat for WSED or it's successor. Many shops, large and small, just can not justify that kind of cost. Until there are low or no-cost options, non-"legacy" development of "legacy" code can not happen cooperatively. The BUILD options are crucial to adoption. Until/unless they exist, the rest is just spinning your proverbial wheels. It is probably more than double the work, because if you adopt the development environment, you then have to manually transport it to z/OS (or z/VM) for build, and manually transport the results back. That is just not cost-effective or productivity-enhancing. Maybe the first cooperative development should be a consistent build capability, followed immediately by highly customizable independent change-control interfaces that do not depend on high-cost software on the mainframe. WRT WIKI, I can see it might be an alternative way to store and organize discussions and knowledge sets. I will withhold judgment until I know more. Lastly, I agree with you that more community is better. How to get there is the hard part. Some dinos will need to be dragged there kicking and screaming, and staked down with ropes and chains to boot. Some of us may just wander over for a look-see, WHEN the right tools are available. Regards, Peter _ This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
