Hi We use Subversion, along with Apache Ant and Jenkins for mainframe source control and program compiles and product builds. We had a VM/CMS development environment which we used to compile on z/OS and z/VSE but it was "old style" and I wanted to take advantage of the latest technologies that I had used along with the Java team - based around Eclipse. I looked at z/OS propriety systems but did not want the expense or to be locked into their way of working. Having used open source products like Subversion, etc. in an Eclipse environment and experienced all the capabilities it offered I wanted the mainframe teams to also benefit from these tools. So we set about converting each product from CMS (and some from a z/OS system) to Subversion, adding Ant tasks and setting up Jenkins to produce developer, QA and production builds and storing of listings etc. We use Assembler, COBOL, PL/1, Java, C, and JavaScript, plus all of the online help, configuration, JCL, etc. so quite a spread of technologies and languages. The biggest challenge was to transfer the source to z/OS and z/VSE for compiling and linking but luckily our products use a common service that has functions that we could piggy back on to. Customers that have Macro 4 products probably already have this common service and we have considered packaging and documenting its features so it could be used by our customers for this additional purpose - please contact me if you think this is something you would like us to consider further. We also wrote a facility to scan all of the source and build dependencies so if a developer updates a Copybook or Macro then the system will automatically recompile and link all the affected programs, thus removing some potential human errors. This is a great help if your staff are flexible and moving between areas or for newbies. The other advantage is that the products are all basically developed and built using the same methods so easy for newcomers to learn and for staff to move between development areas. Younger staff joining the company are also very familiar with the Eclipse environments and tools so again less of a learning curve and thus speeding up their productivity which helps them settle in and become part of the team. The tools we use in our development environment for debugging, tracing, submitting jobs and viewing output, accessing 3270 applications, etc. also have Eclipse interfaces so the developers can stay in their Eclipse environment all day. It freed up mainframe disks, so the mainframe sysprogs were happy. It cost nothing but time and effort so the finance team were happy. It has also made it easier to convince our Open Systems developers to get involved in our mainframe products. No down sides that I can see and we wish we had done it a lot sooner.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
