Likelihood to Recommend It's pretty good at creating an extract of a whole table, but not the best at grabbing all related tables in my experience. Pretty intuitive on setting up your test data categories. I also really like that it can either run via ISPF or via Topaz which was included with our purchase.
Read full review Microsoft Visual Studio Code is highly recommended for the development of systems and / or complex applications entrusted to work teams under a specific methodology, and its use is also recommended for the maintenance of previously developed applications.
It is not recommended as a learning environment for developers with little experience as the learning curve would be too high
Read full review Pros Extract/load data from one DB or table to another masking the data for testing. Compare extracts against each other to ensure good baselines. Read full review Very accessible -- it's compatible with all platforms and environments, free to install, and fast to open Strong native support for many languages, and very strong extensibility to provide advanced language features Git integration is top-notch, often displaying a better history, diff, and merge interface that is otherwise available in version control systems Read full review Cons I find it more obtuse to use than IBM Optim. Related tables are difficult to incorporate. Read full review Lack of button bar like ones found in Visual Studio. Lack of integrated help that could link to YouTube, Channel 9, or other Microsoft videos on how to learn about features. Integration with Team Foundation Server. Would like to see it having some sort of integration into a Web API testing harness. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Solid tool that provides everything you need to develop most types of applications. The only reason not a 10 is that if you are doing large distributed teams on Enterprise level, Professional does provide more tools to support that and would be worth the cost.
Read full review Usability This is a tool for programmers and it works like many others. If you are in the development world already then you will be sailing in no time with Microsoft Visual Studio Code. It is also great for new developers and it is very easy to use and you can get all the tools you need in one place as you begin to learn.
Read full review Support Rating Support has been amazing compared to
Optim . Further, new features are very regular with File-AID - I can't remember the last time
Optim had a significant update. File-AID support is very receptive to feature requests and reported bugs, including sending out hotfixes quickly.
Read full review Active development means filing a bug on the GitHub repo typically gets you a response within 4 days. There are plugins for almost everything you need, whether it be linting,
Vim emulation, even language servers (which I use to code in Scala). There is well-maintained official documentation. The only thing missing is forums. The closest thing is GitHub issues, which typically has the answers but is hard to sift through -- there are currently 78k issues.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Optim is more user friendly in how it operates, in my opinion. It's less obtuse to figure out how to extract and mask the data required compared to File-AID. Further,
Optim is easier to gather related tables, by far. I do prefer using File-AID via the Topaz GUI much more than using
Optim via its GUI. Finally, I personally believe that File-AID is significantly faster to run than
Optim - this could be a configuration issue.
Read full review [Microsoft] Visual Studio Code beats the competition due to its extensibility. Their robust extensions architecture combined with the plethora of mostly free extensions written by the community can't be beaten. The fact that this tool itself is provided by a world-recognized company, Microsoft, free of charge is phenomenal. The goodwill garnered by them is immeasurable. Other tools I've used were missing features or were just too rigid, too complicated, or too unsophisticated for my liking. The fact that VS Code is easy to mold to my will with the right extensions seals the deal.
Read full review Return on Investment Saves time creating production like data for testing. Keeps that data safe from developers and need-to-know only. Read full review Positive impact on minimizing time wasted by employees with software installation and setup Positive impact on reducing spend on software licensing Positive impact on minimizing time used to manage different applications for different purposes - this performs all of the functions we need in basic coding Read full review ScreenShots