Igor Todorovski

Unlocking the Power of the Mainframe: Developing modern applications on z/OS

What if you could run Git, Bash, and your favorite open-source tools on a mainframe? Discover the modern, high-performance development environment now thriving on z/OS.

Unlocking the Power of the Mainframe: Developing modern applications on z/OS
#1about 3 minutes

Debunking common myths about mainframe computing

Modern mainframes offer cost-effectiveness, continuous evolution with AI and quantum-safe hardware, and familiar development environments like Unix.

#2about 6 minutes

Understanding the core pillars of z/OS reliability

The platform's dominance in critical industries is built on robust security, high-performance I/O, and near-zero downtime through hardware redundancy.

#3about 5 minutes

Bridging the open source gap on z/OS

The z/OS Open Tools initiative was created to port essential developer tools like Git, Bash, and Curl, making the platform more accessible.

#4about 4 minutes

Key technical differences between z/OS and Linux

Porting software requires understanding differences in hardware architecture, C runtime libraries, file systems, and character encoding like EBCDIC vs ASCII.

#5about 4 minutes

Strategies for handling EBCDIC and ASCII encoding

Developers can build applications in ASCII mode and use file tagging for automatic character conversion, with a helper library for complex cases.

#6about 2 minutes

Building and maintaining ports with a unified framework

The z/open-build framework simplifies the process of building and installing numerous open source tools by managing dependencies and patches.

#7about 4 minutes

Getting involved and learning more about z/OS

Community members can gain access to a z/OS system for development and contribute to porting efforts through the GitHub organization.

Related jobs
Jobs that call for the skills explored in this talk.

Matching moments

Organizing a developer conference for 15,000 attendees
01:32 MIN

Organizing a developer conference for 15,000 attendees

Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann

Increasing the value of talk recordings post-event
04:57 MIN

Increasing the value of talk recordings post-event

Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann

Selecting strategic partners and essential event tools
03:17 MIN

Selecting strategic partners and essential event tools

Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann

Automating video post-production with local scripts
02:54 MIN

Automating video post-production with local scripts

Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann

Establishing a single source of truth for all data
02:39 MIN

Establishing a single source of truth for all data

Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann

Breaking down silos between HR, tech, and business
03:39 MIN

Breaking down silos between HR, tech, and business

What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee

Balancing the trade-off between efficiency and resilience
03:38 MIN

Balancing the trade-off between efficiency and resilience

What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee

Rapid-fire thoughts on the future of work
02:44 MIN

Rapid-fire thoughts on the future of work

What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee

Featured Partners

Related Videos

See all videos
Coffee with Developers - Robby Russell25:39

Coffee with Developers - Robby Russell

Robby Russell

Empowering Thousands of Developers: Our Journey to an Internal Developer Platform29:26

Empowering Thousands of Developers: Our Journey to an Internal Developer Platform

Bastian Heilemann & Bruno Margula

Closing Keynote by Joel Spolsky46:42

Closing Keynote by Joel Spolsky

Joel Spolsky

Grappling With Clunky Old Software? Start by Understanding What’s Inside!30:23

Grappling With Clunky Old Software? Start by Understanding What’s Inside!

Luc Perard

Navigating the Corporate Jungle: Life as a Developer in a large Company28:16

Navigating the Corporate Jungle: Life as a Developer in a large Company

Alexandra Petri

Cloud as the new mainframe: why the cloud hype does not reflect the dev reality23:00

Cloud as the new mainframe: why the cloud hype does not reflect the dev reality

Gerta Sheganaku & Waldemar Hummer

101 brilliant things of C++45:27

101 brilliant things of C++

Andreas Fertig

Solve the “But it works on my machine!” problem with cloud-based development environments28:55

Solve the “But it works on my machine!” problem with cloud-based development environments

Toma Puljak

Related Articles

View all articles
AG
Andre Braun, GitLab
Now is the time for industrialized software development
Now is the time for industrialized software development Recently, I received a letter from my car’s manufacturer alerting me to a recall. They had discovered a defective part and wanted to replace it. It was easily fixed, and I might have forgotten a...
Now is the time for industrialized software development

From learning to earning

Jobs that call for the skills explored in this talk.