Hi Bill,

It seems to me that the HOOK command would have addressed both of your
PITAs.

Best,
Dave


On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 7:09 AM, DASDBILL2 <[email protected]> wrote:

> That sounds great.  Having to put code into my code in order to start
> using XDC has always been a PITA for me.  And debugging my recovery
> routines (ESTAE, e.g.) were an even bigger PITA.
>
>
> Bill Fairchild
> Franklin, TN
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "Chuck Arney" <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Sent: Monday, April 8, 2013 5:37:43 PM
> Subject: Re: New Software Tool for z/OS Developers Announced by Arney
> Computer Systems
>
> I'll share a few thoughts I have on a couple of these issues.
>
> One of our design goals for TDF was to require no user code changes.  We
> feel that you should never have to add code to your program, let alone
> design facilities into your code to support the job of the debugger, in
> order for you to debug the application's code.  To do that only adds work
> for the developer and invites bugs that would not have existed in the first
> place.  We do recognize there are a few environments there it becomes
> necessary to insert a macro call in order to get the debug process
> initialized and we support that, but normally the user program does not
> require any modification.
>
> About debugging locked code:  Typically I would not discuss future product
> development plans in a public group like this one, but we long ago said
> that
> we were providing an interactive debugger and a non-interactive debugger.
> Due to the long development and beta test times we devoted to bring the
> product to market, release 1.1.0 of TDF provides only the interactive
> debugger.  The non-interactive piece will come in a future release.  You
> can
> find more details about the non-interactive debugging facility on our
> website.  Our design for supporting the debugging of locked code is to use
> the non-interactive debugger.  With no user interaction during the
> execution, and no service calls, the desired debug information can be
> collected while locks are held with no ill effects and no lock integrity
> issues.  If the lack of support for locked code in the interactive debugger
> becomes an issue for a customer, we can certainly discuss that and
> entertain
> other ideas.
>
> Our Pass-through support allows shared local code to automatically handle
> the Traps without abends.  Our Identify facility can be used to allow
> debugging of shared common storage code.  All with no user program changes.
> We have implemented some very nice facilities in this product that are
> designed to make the job of debugging code quick and easy.  And, no code
> changes are needed.
>
> Chuck Arney
> Arney Computer Systems
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On
> Behalf Of Rob Scott
> Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 10:19 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: New Software Tool for z/OS Developers Announced by Arney
> Computer Systems
>
> I have been using z/XDC to debug software in a variety of exotic
> environments over the last 10 years or so and I have to say that the
> software has saved man-months in debugging and development time.
>
> In response to the individual points :
>
> >> In the standard environment, TSO TEST was a lot easier to use
>
> Most of my XDC debug sessions involve a tiny subset of simple one-character
> inputs or PF-key presses - I do not find it hard to use at all.
>
> >> I had problems using the XDC VTAM to trap simple XMEM (a PC out of the
> client address space).
>
> I am almost always in some sort of cross-memory environment when debugging
> using XDC and would say that XDC's ability to handle precisely this is why
> most ISVs have licensed the software.
>
> >> I doubt that XDC can do locked code
>
> XDC can get control to debug locked code - however it must release the held
> locks in order to communicate with the user and provide the ability to
> single-step.
> The user can then instruct XDC to re-establish locks before the program
> execution is resumed.
> Obviously there are inherent risks with this, however I would imagine that
> anyone debugging locked code is doing so on a developer sandpit system, so
> I
> do not see this as a big issue.
> If you are planning holding a lock while providing a single-step debug
> session, I imagine that you would not get very far before you would get a
> catch-22 situation with a system service.
>
> >>Hooks in common-storage modules causing 0C1s for later callers (from
> >>another poster)
> You can solve this with a simple comparison in the code before the #XDCHOOK
> macro.
>
> To debug a complex, cross-memory, multi-task, multi-ASID piece of software,
> a few simple XDC macro statements (and surrounding CLCs) in the code seems
> a
> very small price to pay for what you get.
>
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