During recent classes and presentations, it has become obvious to us that many programmers out there are just not aware of the wealth of information available for free from IBM Redbooks. For example, we have met a large number of students in recent weeks who have not heard of, let alone read, the RPG classic "Who Knew You Could Do That With RPG IV." Well maybe "classic" is a bit of an overstatement but as two of the authors of this noble tome we trust you will forgive us a little parental pride. After all, with the exception of the System Handbook (and that doesn't count because it changes with each release so you need a new copy), it is the most frequently downloaded Redbooks publication in the history of the IBM i. How many downloads? Well as of today it has been downloaded more than 196,000 times since it was released. In fact it has been downloaded more than 13,000 times in the last 12 months alone--not bad for a 10-year-old book.
Although it was first published in 1999 (V4R4), most of the material is as relevant today as it was when we wrote it. There are detailed chapters on writing subprocedures, ILE, various database features and using system APIs. All of which is still relevant, even if it isn't 100-percent up to date. The chapter on coding style has quite a few relevant points, but since the book pre-dates things like /Free format coding, a few obvious points are missing.
So, since we were thinking about Redbooks, we thought we'd make mention of a couple of other favorite "red things" that we think are worthy of your attention.
Since we've already mentioned "Who Knew ..." we'll start there. Those who have read it, often ask us if there will ever be an update to reflect recent additions to the system and the RPG language. The simple answer is probably not. IBM doesn't pay those involved in producing Redbooks, in fact in many cases recently it does not even pay expenses. As a result it is very difficult to get people to commit their time and money to produce something that will probably have zero fiscal benefit to them. That said, an effort was made some two years ago to provide updates to "Who Knew ..." and although the results never made it into an updated version of the book, two new Redpapers were published as a result of the effort:
- "RPG: Exception and Error Handling" provides a comprehensive overview of how to properly handle errors in RPG programs. Perhaps even more importantly, it provides a standard PSSR routine that can be simply added to any RPG program that will ensure that your end users will never have to see the two-line-screen-of-death again! Not only is this better for your end-users, but it will improve your ability to diagnose such errors as it ensures that a program dump is taken and, in the case of interactive programs, also captures the contents of the screen the user was viewing. If you haven't read this document yet take a look.
- "RPG: APIs" provides an introduction to the power that APIs add to your programming efforts.
A more recent Redbooks publication that has caught our attention is "Using IBM DB2 for i as a Storage Engine of MySQL." PHP is having a huge impact in the IBM i arena, and since MySQL is the primary database used by PHP applications, the storage engine is an important component in enabling us to link between our old and new universes. Why? Because by having MySQL use the DB2 storage engine you are able to write RPG programs that access the same databases that are being maintained by the PHP applications that you have deployed, such as SugarCRM, or MediaWiki, or ... While we have a few quibbles with the book--for example, we'd have liked to have seen a little more emphasis on access with native RPG I/O functions--the authors have done a nice job of identifying the issues and demonstrating how to handle them. Well worth a read if PHP is part of your current or future application set.
So--we've told you about a few of our favorite Redbooks publications. What are your favorites? We encourage all of our readers to submit their own "must read" list of Redbooks, or indeed any other no-cost publication.
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