Scott McMahan

Contents

Introduction

About This Site

SoftBase Systems

• Overview
• IBM Stack Setup
• Web-Based VTOC Report
• Java-based Test Framework
• 64-bit Software Development
• Websphere MQ
• .NET Research Project
• Hibernate Persistence Research
• Web Interface For Mainframe App
• XMI Backup Solution
• WORKOUT Test Suite
• Precompiler Re-launch
• Web Product Delivery
• Secure Web Site
• Automated Product Bundling
• Company Backup System
• Mainframe Systems Programming
• Flex-ES Systems Programming
• Mainframe Development/Testing
• Data Masking Tool
• Internet Presence/Administration
• Checkpoint-Restart Web Monitor
• Real-time Data Management Tool
• Java Checkpoint-Restart Tool
• Cross-Platform Checkpoint-Restart API
• Web-Enabled Customer Management
• In-house Phone Report Tool
• In-house License Tool

• Overview
• Channel Intelligence and Miva 5
• Quote Automation System
• Online Used Car Search
• User Validation Module

• Computer Answers

• Education

• Automating Windows With Perl
• Unix Administration
• Improvement
• RPM Planning With Software
• Languages
• Databases
• OS Environments
• Development Tools
• Web Related
• Low-level Programming
• The B.D. McKay Papers
• LaTeX Typesetting
• Media Upload Client
• Web Services For Media
• Open Source Contributions
• History of Computing
• Subversion (SVN)

• Building Computers
• Bare Metal Setup
• Handyman

SoftBase Systems, Inc (1994 - present)

Web Interface For Mainframe App

After a couple of false starts, I got the green light to develop a web interface to a mainframe application. I used Java 2 Enterprise Edition as the target (since a lot of mainframe shops are using WebSphere on Linux or on the mainframe, along with DB2 on the mainframe), and created an object model for the mainframe data. JSP pages took the object model and manipulated it to show data. The presentation of the data had to look good on a variety of screens, from desktop browsers to handheld devices. I decided to use jQuery for the actual presentation of data. I had to set up a test environment with different browsers and platforms.

Yes, the real world intruded. My design goal was to show a full-blown web application which used our object model as the M in MVC, JSP as the V, and struts as the C. Users who wanted to interface with our mainframe product would use this full example as a starting point, since they would have to integrate it with their own applications and security. This perfect scenario clashed with the real-world, rapid application development need for a working demo, which led to JSP code that was not necessarily fully MVC oriented.

I was constantly aware of the need to separate the object model from the controller. I developed the object model and tested it using a command-line scaffolding which ran Jython test scripts. This was meant to be a launching point to create further interfaces to other tools, like using R for analysis of the data.

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