blueshantung


I'm Mark, and I've worked in IT for over 34+ years. I work on Mainframe systems and currently design and develop websites in my spare time as well as enjoying walking, yoga and real ale.

z/OS Mainframe

I have worked in MVS or z/OS for over 34 years; 23 of those as a System Programmer and have always been intrigued by large interconnected systems, sharing workloads and multi-processing realtime and batch work. I have installed MVS releases from OS/390 2.8 through to z/OS 2.2 - each presented new challenges. I have written numerous programs and user exits in C and Assembler, all requiring a bespoke design and utilising various MVS functions but never over-inflating them with unnecessary code.

As well as supporting the MVS systems, I have also supported products such as CA OPS/MVS (developing a new Automation package for my employer's systems to replace a previous system), Phoenix Software's E(JES), Serena Software's ChangeMan and many others.

Beyond the software level, I have consolidated MVS/JES3 systems, removed some and created others. I was the Technical Lead in several Hardware projects to refresh processors, DASD and virtual tape hardware. Each has required extensive use of HCD to create IOCP/IODFs for the hardware configurations. Ultimately, my goal is to simplify each environment and ensure detailed documentation is produced for future understanding.

Some of my programs/utilities are available for download including an online IOCP/IODF viewer.

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Web Development

I started in web design back in 2001 when HTML, CSS and Javascript were quite limited when compared to these days. My original sites were functional and blazoned with colour, but they lacked a finesse in the layout and gloss you see today. Yet they slid into obscurity and armed with an understanding of design, I produced a number of commercial sites; the rest were for my own use or for friends.

In 2003, I branched into PERL and PHP with MySQL and this made my designs less static. I replaced a Mainframe-based tool which was used by 24x7 Operations to record incidents — this is still in active agile development and has been for the past 14 years. Another site was designed for peer review/approver change recording, using a unique platform configuration for different environments.

But web design has moved at an accelerated pace. I embraced flat design with Google's Material Design Lite, produced responsive web design and improved user experience but ultimately, a website should be a balance of design and functionality.

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