I think Chris has hit the nail on the head with regard to the viability of
this idea as a product of some sort. (As a personal project -- that's a
different matter.)
Most "mainframers" (however that term might be defined) are familiar with
TSO and ISPF. There would be a learning curve to use this new product. We
tend to be an old and somewhat rigid bunch, resistant to change. Further,
some are (as someone else hinted) outright hostile to anything running on a
small box.
Unless it enabled its user to do absolutely everything that one needed to do
and could do in ISPF/TSO, it does not really work as a way of avoiding
teaching newbies to use ISPF/TSO, because one would still have to use
ISPF/TSO to do that one function.
Further, of course, one person's "perfect UI" is another person's terrible
UI. The OP likes command line interfaces. I happen to like GUIs. If I were
to design the ideal "ISPF replacement" for me, it would have drag-and-drop
and right-click context menus. My point is not that GUIs are the better
answer; my point is that one man's meat is another man's poison -- which
limits the market for this product (or, equally, a GUI ISPF replacement
product).
Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf
Of Chris Craddock
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 9:58 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: Crazy idea for a "desktop integration with z/OS" project?
BMC built one eight years ago (System Explorer for z/OS) and the response
was underwhelming. The target audience was people new to the platform and it
was supposed to be priced "per seat" but it ended up being tier priced like
everything else which certainly took a lot of the potential appeal
away. Arguably they didn't make any real effort to sell it, but frankly a
lot of TSO/ISPF folks were pretty hostile to the idea of a GUI that did
pretty much everything you can do in ISPF and SDSF. Whether that would still
be true today is open to debate. My guess is that old attitudes die hard.
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