Perceptive choice of words, "prepared to admit". The GUI is another terrific bit of work by the Endicott team that we turned our noses up at. It uses the same agent as ... shoot ... ISPF, I think. So the last time I ran it (on 5.4, within the past year) I had to steal an agent from one of the MVS guys. But, yeah, it worked. The agent requires that something be installed on your workstation, therefore getting users ramped up is a little clunky. These days, they just want a browser, but they forget the requirements which all browsers impose. Then again, the browsers address a serious deployment requirement.
Nicely integrated with CMS MT, the CMS GUI happily runs in the background while you get your CMS "Ready;" prompt back. And XEDIT on a GUI is cool, if a bit strange. HUGE GAPING HOLES in what is present -vs- what is needed. I blame us, the customers. We have whined about some really slick innovation that came out of the VM lab. We should have embraced it, found uses the designers could not envision, and demanded improvements. For my part, I whined loudly about OpenVM (a related feature) when it first hit (about the same time). Nick Gimbrone rightly chastised me for engaging my mouth before my brain was in gear. Later, I recognized the value of OVM and have been singing its praises for more almost 15 years now. The GUI is probably not nearly as useful. My point is that they are both undervalued assets in CMS. If your young apprentices are wanting a better interface, maybe they'll be pleased to drive some work through a web server. I can recommend one. :-) Q: what exactly do we have in VM/CMS? A: the most robust virtual machine hypervisor in existence coupled with the most efficient application development environment available. The number of ways to interface with either is more than I can count. Surely your junior sysprogs can employ their imagination and come up with something to their liking. -- R; <>< Rick Troth Velocity Software http://www.velocitysoftware.com/ On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 07:54, Jeff Gribbin <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings folks, > Some recent discussion brought to mind the old CMS GUI Facility that > shipped > with VM/ESA 2.1 - and now I'm in a position where I might for the first > time > actually be able to configure a z/VM system to allow me to play with the > beast, I got to wondering if it even still exists. > > The best I've been able to find in the way of IBM documentation is: > > http://www.vm.ibm.com/gui/ > > I found an interesting reference to a 2004 z/VM GUI project - > > http://web2.clarkson.edu/projects/cosi/zTeam/zvmgui/ > > but alas that seems to have since sunk without trace. > > So ... a few questions ... > > Anybody using it? > Anybody prepared to admit they're using it? > Anybody know if it's still maintained in any current form? > > This is purely a personal learning exercise triggered by the aforementioned > conversation and my recent exposure to young sysprogs (< 25 years old) who > tend to love what CP and CMS can do but fall about laughing whenever the > user interface is discussed. All comments gratefully received. > > Regards > Jeff >
