Author Archives: Martin Packer

(Originally posted 2018-10-06.) This summer has seen the most travel I think I’ve ever done, and I would imagine Marna feels much the same. We like to record together – which has made the logistics difficult. We actually met in the summer but thought recording in the same room would be difficult. We’ve stayed withContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 19 “You’ve Lost That Syncing Feeling””

(Originally posted 2018-09-23.) This post is an update to Batch DB2 And MQ The Easy Way, which I wrote back in 2016. There’s nothing wrong with what I wrote then – but there’s something extra I want to impart now. In that post I said you can answer the question “What are the big CPUContinue reading “MQ Batch CPU”

(Originally posted 2018-09-09.) I have another flight where my Inbox is surprisingly close to empty so I’m writing about a nice iOS app that should be of interest to both mainframers and non-mainframers. This app is Rescript by Matteo Villa and it is a javascript programming environment for iPad and iPhone. It, most particularly, allowsContinue reading “Appening 6 – Rescript NodeJS Environment”

(Originally posted 2018-07-28.) It’s the Time Of The Season1 for thinking about Day One support. Not for z/OS, or DB2, or CICS, or anything mainframe-related. But for iOS, MacOS and their kin. Before you switch off – if you’re an Android user2 – you can consider the Apple bit an analogue. This post will beContinue reading “Day One Support; Who Needs It?”

(Originally posted 2018-07-26.) “Mum!” came the cry in the middle of the night. You can imagine how well that was received.1 “There’s a frog in the bathroom!” shouted my daughter. Indignant or horrified, you decide. 🙂 So, a number of thoughts occurred: It can’t do us any harm; It’s tiny and probably more scared ofContinue reading “Ethel The Frog And Other Animals”

(Originally posted 2018-07-09.) Writing about writing; How meta is that? 🙂 It’s been 4 years since I wrote Appening 3 – Editorial on iOS. (In the same year I went on to write Appening 4 – SwiftKey on iOS. So here we are with another thrilling “Appening” episode.) Seriously, it’s been a while since IContinue reading “Appening 5 – Drafts On iOS”

(Originally posted 2018-07-07.) Sometimes I can plan ahead, designing analysis code for an upcoming feature of e.g. z/OS. Often, however, a condition falls into my lap – without my having thought about it first. This is about the latter. It’s about CICS’ support of Java Liberty Profile – or “Lib Profile” for short. I wantContinue reading “CICS Takes The Liberty”

(Originally posted 2018-06-25.) This post follows on from something I mentioned in When Reality Bytes. Some things I get to immediately; Others take a little time. This is one of the latter. A more systematic, better, way for classifying work as Mobile was introduced with APARs OA47072 for WLM and OA48466 for RMF in DecemberContinue reading “More Mobile”

(Originally posted 2018-05-29.) In a sense this post follows on from I Must Be Mad – where I talked about some of the subtleties of processing SMF. In another sense it’s writing down in public a briefing I want to give one of my mentees.1 She’s about to prototype some code to go against aContinue reading “Rexx’Em”

(Originally posted 2018-05-27.) I must be mad to do what I do… 🙂 Specifically, I’m talking about maintaining code to process SMF records, rather than relying on somebody else to do it. Recently I sat down with someone who is getting started with processing SMF. In fact they’re building sample reporting to go against aContinue reading “I Must Be Mad”