> Of course, there are always wish list items, but why do you
say ISPF out of the bag isn't very productive?
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
Where do I begin? :-)
First off, I don't want to come off sounding harsh; I have been happily
using ISPF for over 25 years. And, I realize that life before ISPF (which
was before my time, thank goodness!) was a lot more difficult. (I have
seen TSO Edit....not a pretty sight... though I am sure that some of the
more venerable members of this list remember it fondly)
However, ISPF forces you to remember a *lot* of data set names. To the
system programmers on this list that may not be a big deal, (everything that
matters starts with SYS1.* right?) but I work in applications support where
every one of the systems I work with tends to have unique naming
conventions. Yeah, you can blame that on lax standards, but the point is it
that you have to cope with it regardless.
I used to cope with it by keeping scraps of paper scattered around my desk,
or on my cubicle walls, each one with a list of important data set names for
"easy" reference. And when I lost the scrap of paper, I was forced to
grope my way to the right answer by doing catalog searches using 3.4 or
LISTCAT.
Navigation is another issue. If I had a dollar for every time I told a
newbie "No, you have to go to 3.1 to do that" I could have retired 5 years
ago. This becomes second nature after a while, but is there no standard
member list on which you can do everything? What's a newbie to think?
(...that ISPF "sucks" perhaps?)
Lack of integration is another biggie. I spend a lot of time performing
impact analysis for application changes. A big part of my job involves
searching for variable names or other strings of information stored within
our source libraries. To do this I have to split my screen, go to 3.14 and
perform a search. SRCHFOR does a good job of searching, but returns the
results in a report. There's nothing *wrong* with that, but it is much less
productive than seeing the search results expressed in a member list from
which you can then select members for Browsing or Editing.
And that's just data sets. ISPF doesn't give you any way to manage, say,
DB2 tables, TSO commands or other non-data set objects. (Option 6, which
keeps a list of the last 10 TSO commands executed doesn't constitute
"managing" in my opinion. I want a list that is under my full control).
Am I not being unfair by demanding this? No, because that's what today's
progammer has to deal with, and ISPF isn't giving him enough help. (IMHO
anyway).
And yes, I know each one of these complaints probably has a historical or
technical justification of some sort, and some have workarounds. However,
that is not the point I am trying to make.
If z/OS is to continue to thrive, its interactive user interface is going to
have to be perceived as accessible and productive.
This is why I have become an enthusiastic user of SimpList, a productivity
tool marketed by Mackinney. It's extremely inexpensive (ie, so it's not
just a "wish list" item) and addresses all of the concerns I expressed
above.
Not that I feel strongly about this issue. :-)
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