Che and Mainframe? Eclipse Che4z!

Dejan Milinkovic
Nov 4 · 3 min read

Broadcom, in collaboration with Red Hat, have created an Eclipse Che sub-project called Che4z.

Why Eclipse Che for Mainframe?

Our primary goal is to bring Eclipse Che’s modern developer experience to mainframe software development. Achieving this makes on-boarding new developers in the world of mainframe simpler and easier. The goals and technology that Che offers align with mainframe software development objectives. Eclipse Che’s cutting edge technology brings this flexibility to the mainframe. To bring web/hosted IDE to new generation mainframe developers we decided to extend Che and focus on the mainframe application developers https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/ecd.che.che4z.

As the tools are centrally maintained and integrated, developers no longer have to spent their time upgrading their machines and maintaining plugin compatibility issues. Eclipse Che4z gives developers the tools that they are used to, while providing the IT team a way to ensure consistency across the board.

Let’s take a closer look at what is in the “starter package” of Eclipse Che4z:

z/OS Resource Explorer

Explorer provides the ability to connect to a mainframe and explore datasets with a familiar VS Code user experience. Working with datasets and members is as easy as working with files and folders in Windows or Linux.

z/OS resource explorer

z/OS Resource Explorer is built on top of Zowe (the first ever open source project for mainframe).

COBOL language support

Eclipse Che editors support Language Server Protocol (LSP) standards. Broadcom has implemented COBOL LSP to provide syntax validation, suggestions and auto-correct functionality to work on any IDE supporting LSP. The current implementation supports Enterprise COBOL v6.0 syntax.

Eclipse Che plugins like the outline view are also available for Cobol sources.

COBOL language support

Explorer for Endevor

The majority of business application code on z/OS is managed by source control management (SCM) tools. The most widely-used and most popular mainframe SCM is CA Endevor® SCM . Explorer for Endevor allows developers to browse and retrieve CA Endevor® SCM elements. Creating customized filters enables you to browse and retrieve specific elements when you do not know the exact paths to the elements beforehand.

Explorer for CA Endevor SCM

Zowe CLI

Developers love choice, so for all the new generation developers who like to use CLI for automation or scripting, Eclipse Che4z includes the Zowe CLI.

Zowe cli

Give it a try, it’s easy. Access the sources you need from Explorer for z/OS and leverage the COBOL extension to bring the advanced edit functionality to your COBOL work efforts. Build and test your code with Zowe CLI. Browse and retrieve elements managed by CA Endevor® SCM. Download Eclipse Che4z from here.

The extensions are also available from the VS Code marketplace. Look for

The main goal of our efforts to open source this project is to build a community — join us on the journey to redefine the next generation of mainframe application development.

Che4z che image is waiting for you here to try it!


Get Involved!

Quick Start with Eclipse Che.

Join the community:

  • Support: You can ask questions, report bugs, and request features using GitHub issues.
  • Public Chat: Join the public eclipse-che Mattermost channel to discuss with community and contributors.
  • Weekly Meetings: Join us in our Che community meeting every second monday.
  • Mailing list: che-dev@eclipse.org

Dejan Milinkovic

Written by

Product manager @Broadcom (previously CA technologies), working with Development tools. Crazy, enthusiastic, fan of sports and nature.

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