Frank Chu, Senior Software Engineer at ColeSoft, was recently elected to join the board of SHARE, an independent volunteer-run information technology association that provides education, professional networking and industry influence for the enterprise IT community. Frank shares his thoughts about his new role - and the role of SHARE in the mainframe community.

Debugging mainframe applications requires flexibility in how you initiate your debugging environment. Z/XDC provides five distinct methods to start debugging sessions, each tailored to different scenarios and workflows. Let's walk through all five options and help you figure out which approach fits your specific situation best.

AI-generated code promises to revolutionize development: write a prompt, get working code, ship faster. The reality looks different. AI produces code that compiles, runs, and does something. Whether it does what you actually need is another question entirely.

Watching code execute instruction by instruction changes how mainframe developers approach debugging and modernization. For teams working with legacy systems, this kind of visibility makes a real difference.

Mainframe teams often find themselves trapped in a cycle of defensive testing, building elaborate test suites that take longer to maintain than the code they're meant to protect. When you can't see what your code actually does during execution, the natural response is to test everything, just in case.

Finding bugs: Overlooking the Obvious. How many times have you read your code and overlooked the obvious? It's probably happened a lot because there are a number of common cognitive biases that lead even the best developers to miss bugs in their own code, even after multiple personal reviews. Why do these blind spots occur, how does mental fatigue and familiarity impact debugging, and - most importantly - how can programmers develop practical techniques to improve error detection? 

I have added disassembly support for all new opcodes and extended mnemonics as documented in the recently published -14 edition of z/Architecture Principles of Operation.

Frank Chu of Izzi Software Elected to SHARE Board as Director at Large. Leading information technology association selects IT specialist to promote education, networking, and leadership for global enterprise computing ecosystem

Debugging on the mainframe can be a daunting task, often leading developers to resort to time-consuming and risky workarounds. While sometimes necessary, some workarounds can significantly impact delivery timelines and affect team morale. Before turning to solutions like ColeSoft’s Z/XDC, developers often find themselves stuck in a cycle of inefficiency and frustration.

Invisible Assumptions in Mainframe Software Engineering: Teams need to look for hidden risks and blind spots they don’t realize they have. In the world of mainframe development, invisible assumptions can lead to hidden risks and blind spots that teams often don't realize they have. These assumptions can be costly, as you can't test what you can't see. Understanding and addressing these hidden traps is crucial for maintaining the stability and reliability of legacy systems.