Kirkman Enterprises

 I talked about this a year ago.  If you've ever looked at my resume or portfolio of work, you know that I have an interest in mainframes.  It all started in 2006 when I was introduced to IBM's "Master the Mainframe" contest.  It was only in its second running back then and only a couple thousand students participated, if that many.  Now in it's 7th year, I wouldn't be surprised if they announce in January that over 5,000 students from high schools and universities from across North America participated in the contest.  The contest only started three days ago and there are already more than 1,000 submissions for the first of three parts of the contest.  

The contest is structured to allow someone with no knowledge of mainframes to compete.  The first part has detailed instructions and a lot of screen-shots to help you thought.  As you progress through the three parts of the contest the detailed instructions slowly disappear and are replaced with links to programming guides and error lookup facilities.  To be successful in all three parts of the contest you have to learn to think for yourself, troubleshoot issues with your code and be able to research problems on the Internet.  It requires all the skills a person would need working on school projects or in a job even if the work isn't being done on a mainframe. 

I completed the first two parts of the contest within the first 13 hours of the contest opening up.  I wasn't the first person to submit the second part this year (I don't think).  I did that last year and goofed something and didn't provide 100% correct solutions.  Hopefully, I didn't do that this year.  I'll be starting the third part soon.  I look forward to interacting with the "Rational Developer for System z" product again this year.  Last year was the first year I got to use it.  It is an Eclipse based IDE focused on System z development including the ability to interact with data sets on the mainframe, have open and edit multiple members/files simultaneously, see the results of batch jobs and more from within the IDE.  For me, it made development much easier and quicker.  After all, when you are in a TN3270 interface there are still only a limited number of lines that can be displayed.  While you can do split screens in the terminal it is still awkward to do a lot of work, particularly when you are used to Eclipse and other IDEs already.  Following last year's competition, a survey was sent out asking for feedback on Rational Developer for System z.  That feedback earned me a mention in a recent edition of IBM Systems Magazine.  (Maybe I should be putting all these newspaper and online article mentions in my full resume?  )

I look forward to completing the third part of the contest this year.  All the while, the business I've been talking about lately is still on hold for lack of a business partner.  I'm participating in a set of Entrepreneurship seminars at school that will last through the end of the year.  Maybe something will come of that.  I'm figuring at this point either I'll need to take on the role of marketer with manufacturers to encourage them to participate in the site, or I'll have to update my resume (already done here) and start getting it passed around.  Perhaps I'll do both.