Those are excellent examples of how it MIGHT be just some weaknesses in specific sub-implementations for z/OSMF (not sure what to call those; "sub-implementations" seems at least workable: "when thing X gets z/OSMF-ized").
The AT-TLS thing isn't z/OSMF's fault per se, but it sure would color one's perception of z/OSMF, especially if you hit it early on. And if there are lots of those, then it becomes z/OSMF's fault, because "z/OSMF is hard to use". That statement would be correct in that case, even if, again, it's not z/OSMF's fault per se. And &deity knows that there were lots of terrible early Windows products (Adobe has never corrected theirs)! -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Colin Paice Sent: Friday, July 12, 2024 1:06 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: another z/OSMF rant. -- Catch-22 is killing me Going back about 20 years... I thought ISPF dialog manager and customising was great. Someone used it to produce a terrible tool. You had to enter a lot of data (which it could have queried for). Having used it once, you could not change the configuration. The end user comments were like "ISPF customising is rubbish" meaning the stuff behind ISPF was rubbish. I've also seen some excellent ISPF tools for customising which were really slick. Used properly z/OSMF could be very useful. If you use z/OSMF to create AT-TLS definitions - it does not query what you already have - you have to enter it all from scratch! This is not z/OSMF's fault. Colin On Fri, 12 Jul 2024 at 17:34, Phil Smith III <li...@akphs.com> wrote: > Well, like a busted clock, Bill isn't wrong *every* time. The thinking > is that since Kids Today expect GUIs, having one will make z/OS more > attractive/usable for them. That's probably not wrong: y'all use ISPF, > right? That's a GUI, such as they were circa 1980. Why do you use it? > Because it's more productive: it makes stuff easier for you. Same > argument will apply to that PFSK who takes over after you and I stroke > out in front of our 3270 emulators. > > I believe the questions are, as I implied in my earlier post: > > 1) Is z/OSMF usable as a GUI--that is, is it sufficiently functional > to solve the problem? It *seems* like the answer may be "no". But I > admit I have not touched it (I don’t need to--yet). > > 2) Is z/OS even GUI-able without major structural changes? DOS really > wasn't. As we know, it went from "Here's a shell on top of DOS" to > "Here's Windows, with a DOS "command prompt" emulator available". > That's a fundamental difference. Does z/OS need that level of change? > I suspect so, especially since so much is non-standard > nowadays--there's no "All the parmlib stuff is always in SYS1.PARMLIB" > the say "All .ini files are in C:\Windows". Heck, that's so ingrained > that any of you who ever had a Windows machine with Windows on some > drive other than C will recall various products that absolutely would > not work...and that's *with* that standardization! > > I'd like z/OSMF to be The Answer. I'm just not convinced that the > folks driving it understand the challenge or have the resources/vision > to meet it. I hope I'm wrong. > > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On > Behalf Of Tom Longfellow > Sent: Friday, July 12, 2024 9:05 AM > To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU > Subject: Re: another z/OSMF rant. -- Catch-22 is killing me > > In what way does z/OSMF make zOS more viable? The new crowd of fresh > young bucks will have to learn 'something' in order to work with zOS. > Why does it have to be an 'abstraction' layer isolating them from the > down and dirty details to get a working system. > Right now, their "viability" tool has me dead in the water. Unable to do > my JOB. Sooner or later someone will notice and it will be another nail > in the casket of zOS and IBM. > > Oh sure, GUIs are cool looking and sexy. We are finishing up year 25+ of > a 5 year plan to get off the mainframe. It was sold to the money men with > a few prototype panels of how the GUI might work. The only techincal > detail they were concerned with was "When can we have it". I contend > that the total costs of the grand networks of interelated servers costs way > more than the costs on our mainframe. But, sturdy work horse don't look > the same as thoroughbreds. Pretty pictures win the day. > > I guess I am not buying into current thinking. like "If you CAN encrypt, > you MUST encrypt" , "If it CAN look like Windows, it MUST look like Windows" > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send > email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send > email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
