Visual Studio Code for Mainframe Via the Zowe Explorer Extension

{Core} According to Stack Overflow, the popularity of Visual Studio Code is exploding — 11M users according to some — while the popularity of Eclipse is quickly fading. So it’s natural that mainframers would like to benefit from the same power and usability that VS Code offers their distributed colleagues. This is especially true of Millennial and Gen Z mainframers who may already know the tool and use it outside of work.

Enter Zowe Explorer.

The Zowe Explorer extension already has 3,600 downloads from the VS Code Marketplace so there’s plenty of interest in using Visual Studio Code for IBM Z needs. Powered by the Zowe CLI, Explorer streamlines interaction with mainframe data sets, USS files, and jobs. See the Marketplace page for more on details, requirements, etc., but this Getting Started video provides a nice 4-minute overview as well:

The follow-on video — just published— explains how to work with data sets:

The team is always interested in feedback so visit the GitHub repository or use the Q&A feature on the Marketplace page (and the contributors love Ratings/Reviews too).

If you’re interested in using VS Code more broadly, the Code4z extension pack includes the Zowe Explorer as well as language support for COBOL and HLASM and useful connections to proprietary, mainframe-native tools for SCM and debugging.

We’ll update this page as new resources are published so why not bookmark it?

Enjoy!