EXECPGM explores technology, strategy, architecture, and the principles of effective IT work.

Recent posts:

  • Resilience for Z – Past present, future
    This article is an extension of a presentation a colleague and I gave at the GS NL 2025 conference, in Almere on June 5, 2025. Introduction In this article, I will examine today’s challenges in IT Resilience and look at where we came from with mainframe technology. Today’s resilience is no longer just threatened by… Read more: Resilience for Z – Past present, future
  • Connecting from z/OS apps to Kafka via MQ
    Apache Kafka is the de facto standard open-source event streaming platform. In event-driven architectures, applications publish events when data changes, allowing other systems to react in real-time rather than polling for updates. An example is a CRM application that serves as the system of record for customer data. When a customer’s address changes, instead of… Read more: Connecting from z/OS apps to Kafka via MQ
  • Automation: From Repetition to Engineering
    I often realize I’m doing repetitive tasks that could easily be automated. Money transfers, reminders, invoices-these are simple, low-effort activities that don’t deserve to consume my time. Every time this happens, I tell myself, “I should automate this to save time and mental effort.” And yet, somehow, I don’t. I tell myself I have no… Read more: Automation: From Repetition to Engineering
  • The Cathedral Effect: Designing Engineering Spaces for Creativity and Focus
    In software engineering, as in many creative and technical fields, the environment shapes how we think and work. An intriguing psychological phenomenon known as the Cathedral Effect offers valuable insights into how physical and virtual workspaces can be designed to optimize both high-level creativity and detailed execution. What Is the Cathedral Effect? The Cathedral Effect… Read more: The Cathedral Effect: Designing Engineering Spaces for Creativity and Focus
  • zopen community – open source tools for Z
    I must shamefully admit I was not aware of the zopen community initiative before it recently became part of the Open Mainframe project. The zopen community provides a great set of open source tools ported for Z. Such as the dos2unix utility I wrote about earlier here.
  • dos2unix on z/OS
    On z/OS UNIX, the dos2unix utility is not included. You can achieve similar functionality using other tools available on z/OS UNIX, such as sed or tr. These tools can be used to convert DOS-style line endings (CRLF) to Unix-style line endings (LF). For example, you can use sed to remove carriage return characters: Or you… Read more: dos2unix on z/OS

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