Author Archives: Martin Packer

(Originally posted 2013-01-21.) To me learning is like Microwave Popcorn. Specifically, turning into Part of the fun of making popcorn is watching the bag and listening to the poppings: As each kernel pops it pushes the bag out. And so it is with learning: Every piece of knowledge contributes to the overall shape. Anyhow, enoughContinue reading “Microwave Popcorn, REXX and ISPF”

(Originally posted 2013-01-13.) First, a belated Happy New Year! to everyone. It’s been a busy past few weeks, not least because of the customer situation I’m working on. But, to kick off 2013 here are the two conference abstracts I submitted for the UKCMG Annual Conference. No pressure, guys. 🙂 
 Time For DIME InContinue reading “A Good Way To Kick Off 2013 – Two UKCMG Conference Abstracts”

(Originally posted 2012-12-11.) There was a time before blogging 🙂 and what I’m about to talk about is something I used to explain quite often back in those days. Reminded by a current customer situation – and needing to explain it again – I thought it time to do it this way. (Here I’m presentingContinue reading “DB2 Timings For CICS Transactions – With Thread Reuse”

(Originally posted 2012-12-09.) I’m trying to put some structure on the idea of Life And Times Of An Address Space. The best way to do it, I think, is to attempt a taxonomy of address space types. So here’s an initial stab: One thing that immediately comes to mind is you can map useful SMFContinue reading “Two Potential New Presentations – Coming Soon?”

(Originally posted 2012-12-08.) Every year I like to debut one new presentation, though that isn’t a firm rule: In 2012 I debuted “Send In The Clones” (SITC)1 and “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (IKWYDLS), but actually only the first one was written in 2012. Of course presentations are “slow trains coming”: I widelyContinue reading “Two Potential New Presentations – Coming Soon?”

(Originally posted 2012-12-04.) I’ve talked about BPXWUNIX before but here’s a nice use case: Filtering REXX query results. When I get your performance data I have code that stores it in a database which I query with (essentially) REXX. The predicate syntax is very simplistic so I’d like to do better. I can’t replace theContinue reading “Filtering REXX Query Results With BPXWUNIX”

(Originally posted 2012-12-03.) Just a brief follow on to Bad Data And The Subjunctive Mood: Here’s a podcast I like to listen to while running. (Music and podcasts are about the only thing that keep me running, that and the success at my modest goals.) BBC Radio 4 has a very nice programme More OrContinue reading “A Nice Data Provenance Related Podcast”

(Originally posted 2012-12-02.) Or should that be “Subjective Data And The Bad Mood”? 🙂 A good friend of mine says that when dispensing advice one shouldn’t use “may” or “might”, but that one should be more definite. I’ve probably said this before: When I say or write “may” or “might” I’m deploying the subjunctive moodContinue reading “Bad Data And The Subjunctive Mood”

(Originally posted 2012-11-24.) I seem to be obsessed with finding patterns in data, don’t I? And, to my mind, I’m insufficiently obsessed to bring it all to a thunderous conclusion. Pardon the self-flagellation 🙂 here: This stuff is technically difficult. But just yesterday I think I made a breakthrough. I think it’s worth sharing itContinue reading “Towards A Pattern Explorer – Jobname Analysis”

(Originally posted 2012-11-20.) Once in a while there comes along a simple coding enhancement that really kicks the story forwards. This post is about just such a simple thing, as I think customer Performance people would benefit from it. Consider the following perfectly ordinary graph heading (and ignore the grottiness of the font if youContinue reading “A Simple Graphing Enhancement Makes All The Difference”