Happy Birthday, Mac

Having spent the past 12 months celebrating the 25th birthday of our favorite system, we start this year by celebrating the 30th anniversary of our second favorite system--the Mac!

Hard as it might be to believe, this year marks 30 years since the introduction of the Macintosh. You may recall the brilliant Superbowl ad that told us that "1984 will not be like 1984." Interestingly of course we now know that while 1984 was not at all like 1984, 2014 courtesy of the NSA is certainly headed in that direction--but we digress.

We were not immediate Mac converts, coming relatively late to the party. Jon made the switch back in 2007 with Susan finally following him in 2011. Once we made the switch we were hooked. We would no more think of switching back to Windows than fly in the air, or give up our beloved IBM i, for that matter. Mac and OS/X are indeed the "IBM i of the PC world."

Macworld magazine put out a really interesting article titled "The Mac and other things turning 30 in 2014" to celebrate the event. This piece highlighted a number of interesting things. For example 1984 was the year that "The Cosby Show" launched and just to provide a real contrast, it was also the year that Madonna's album "Like a Virgin" was released on an unsuspecting world. Was it really that long ago?

On the technology front, the one item that really made us go "Wow!" was that 1984 was the year IBM launched the AT and, wait for it, the Portable! That 30-pound behemoth that was less portable than a Selectric typewriter.



When you compare the design and capabilities of that early Mac with the IBM portable or the AT, it is easy to see how far ahead of the curve Apple's thinking was. That is a trend that continues today, although the gap is certainly smaller. Many others have tried to clone the design and ease of use of a Mac, but very few even come close.

So Happy Birthday, Mac--30 years old and not a single name change, unless you are being pedantic and count shortening Macintosh to Mac as a change!

The Future of IT?

In last week's blog we covered a few of our predictions/hopes for 2014. As luck would have it, shortly after that blog was posted a couple of future-oriented news items crossed our desks. We thought they would be worth a mention as they are both a little outside the box.

First up is a piece titled "IT Is Losing Control ... And That's OK." While there is a lot of truth in what the author says here here, our immediate reaction was a strong feeling of deja vu, but it took a while to realize just why. You might want to stop and read the piece now and then come back and see if you agree with us.

Back again? If you are old enough it might remind you of the situation back in the 1980s when accountants and marketing folks started sneaking Apple IIs loaded with Visicalc into the office and had to fight corporate IT tooth and nail to keep them. It took a long time and perhaps the entry of IBM into the PC market, to fully legitimize PCs as a corporate tool. IT finally gave in and PCs and data connectivity became the norm and were fully absorbed into the IT pantheon. IT appeared to have learned their lesson, and over the years PCs, and specifically Windows, became the new norm.

But of course technology doesn't stand still. This time the disruptive influence is mobile apps and the whole bring your own device (BYOD) scenario. Once again IT finds itself struggling to respond in a timely fashion while maintaining control. We suspect that, at least in part, IT will be unable to effectively maintain control of the BYOD situation in the short term. In the long term though, security of corporate data and the problems caused by trying to maintain large numbers of incompatible apps will eventually turn control of the resulting mess back to IT. There's one good comment on the post that points out many of the issues that we might raise on the subject, so we won't say any more. If nothing else the article points out that perhaps once again our users are be leaving us behind.

So if we are not being responsive enough to our user's needs what can we do to catch up? All sorts of methodologies and tools have been promoted over recent years, from new languages such as Java, PHP and Ruby, to methodologies such as agile. But while all have had an impact, they are all programmer driven and don't do a lot to involve users in the process. As a result none of them really jumped out and said, "This might be just the thing for IBM i users." Then we read this: "How An Arcane Coding Method From 1970s Banking Software Could Save The Sanity Of Web Developers Everywhere."

Interestingly there was no Web to develop for 40 years ago when flow-based programming (FBP) was first introduced, so clearly the technique has potential well beyond Web development. In fact, as you'll see from the article, one of the original apps built with this technology was a banking application that is still in use today. Fair warning, this article and others linked to it get pretty deep pretty quickly but there does seem to be something real and different there.

So why do we think it might help solve a few problems? Well it is partly the tight integration of users into the development process. We have always felt that one of the things that distinguish many IBM i developers from their brethren on other platforms is that we are more business oriented. Very few of the UNIX or Windows programmers we have met over the years had much of a clue about the way the business actually operates. Not so for the IBM i folk who sometimes know more about the overall operation of their business than almost anybody else in the company. FBP fits this paradigm well as it heavily involves all of the stakeholders in the process. Indeed in some cases the fundamentals of an application can be put in place by the users before IT even get fully involved.

So why has it taken 40 years for this technique to begin to gain momentum? It may have been a case of waiting for technology to advance to a point where the type of graphical interface needed to make the process really sing became a practical reality. To see what we mean, take a look at NoFlo, a project recently funded on KickStarter that is based in JavaScript. As you can see it takes programming to an entirely different level.

If you want more information on the history of FBP check out the website of its originator J Paul Morrison. You can also find more traditional tooling on SourceForge, which include generators for a number of languages. Sadly, but not surprisingly, no RPG yet. Any volunteers?

As usual we welcome your thoughts in the blog comments section--particularly if you have had any experience with FBP.

New Year Predictions

Some may think these are hopes more than predictions for the year ahead and in some cases we would have to agree.

1) Modernization clarified

The new Modernization Redbooks publication, which we have mentioned before, is due to be delivered in the first quarter of the year. It is in the proofreading stage right now. It is perhaps too much to hope that it will have as far reaching an impact as the earlier "Sorcerer's Guide" RPG Redbooks publication. Our hope is that this new publication will help RPGers realize the breadth of modernization options open to them and, perhaps most importantly, that there is no single right answer. Even more importantly, that the _only_ wrong answer is to do nothing!

2) RPG enhancements continue--perhaps more openly

We finally have a completely free-form version of our favorite language and we love it! But what about 2014? We wish we knew. Despite the fact that Rational is now quite open about its future plans for other products, the oganization remains very tight-lipped about future enhancements to RPG and RDi. By the time Barbara Morris was allowed to tell the world about the free-form changes she was just about fit to explode. Hopefully in 2014 Rational management will realize that the community has a lot to offer in assisting them in formulating their plans and will involve RPGers more in their planning.

3) An expanded audience for RPG education

The biggest change here is that free-form RPG will open the door to many younger programmers. We have introduced many Java/C++/PHP/etc. programmers to the joys of RPG and most love it. The one exception is that they find it _really_ frustrating when a whole bunch of errors suddenly appear when they do nothing more than simply delete a spurious character in a name on a D or F spec. Not to mention the myriad errors that occur when they forget to code /Free and /End-Free directives. Then there is the issue of having to remember the right letter and column to use in order to specify that a file is externally described or update capable! For those of us who grew up with columnar RPG it is no big deal, but imagine how frustrating it is if you are new to the language.

PHP, Java, and, now Ruby, open the doors to a new group of developers--and most like what they find. Let's hope that some of the plans being formulated to advance IBM i education around the world start to bare fruit.

4) SEU bites the dust

No, we are _not_ predicting that IBM will stop supporting SEU altogether. We suspect that may not happen in our careers. However, IBM did stop enhancing it for new language features back in V6. That wasn't that big a deal until the new completely free format RPG came onto the scene. Rational Developer for i has the only editor from IBM that understands and supports the free format F, D, H and P specs. If you want to use that new support and you don't like the idea of a completely reverse-image green screen full of errors, you had better not be using SEU.

We expect to see the trend of those moving from SEU to RDi taking another sharp rise in 2014, thanks to the new RPG format (or lack thereof). Of course, we've been telling people for years it's a superior tool for programmer productivity, regardless of IBM's support for other editors or languages. But, hey, if it takes a new RPG to bring people to a more productive toolset, so be it.

5) Ruby makes its presence felt

Only time will tell if the community will embrace Ruby as it has PHP but, with enthusiasts like Aaron Bartell behind it, there's certainly a good possibility. Unlike PHP however, Ruby does require that you completely embrace the OO model, but perhaps the community is ready for that now.

6) SQL growth continues

The last few years have seen a massive growth in SQL usage and we expect to see that continue. While we do not count ourselves in the "The answer is SQL. Now what was the question?" category that some SQL bigots seem to fall into, we do welcome this change.

Database modernization projects also seem to be proceeding apace and we expect this to continue as more and better tooling enters the market.

Summing it up

We could go on and add a whole bunch of other categories. Increased usage of Open Access handlers for tasks other than 5250 modernization for example. Or even more widespread use of free PHP tooling. But we have to stop somewhere and invite you to add your own predictions in the comments section.

Too Old to Learn?

2014 is here and it’s a “big birthday” year for both of us. Jon is counting the days to his 65th birthday and Susan can’t be too cruel in her birthday celebration plans poking fun at his age since she turns 60 a few weeks later. We confess to spending a fair bit of energy lately looking at the possibility of retirement - calculating how and when is the optimum time to begin collecting retirement income from various sources.

But one thing we’re not doing is thinking about is stopping - or even slowing down - on learning new things. Learning is fun - that’s what we always told our kids, right? Does that change just because we’re older? It doesn’t matter much what we’re learning - whether it’s programming languages or tools or dancing or yoga. Jon has been having tons of fun with his Arduino that he received for Christmas from a friend who understands (and shares) his thirst for learning.

One of the more frustrating aspects of our jobs when we’re teaching on-site classes is dealing with those who seem to feel they are too old to learn how to code differently or how to use a new tool to edit their code. Some of them actually tell us they are too old or they have just done it the old way for so long, they can’t change. At that point, Jon especially loves to challenge them to an age comparison - “I’ll bet you’re not older than me. If I can learn it, you can too.” Others don’t actually voice the sentiment but seem resistant to the new tools and techniques and often bring up at some point during our days there that they are looking forward to their retirement in a few months.

Hey - we’re looking forward to our retirement as well. But that doesn’t reduce our enthusiasm to learn new things. Learning is never “wasted.” So what if you’re planning to retire in six months or a year? Does that mean you’re wasting your energy learning to write more effective code using techniques or languages that didn’t exist decades ago when you started or that you should continue to use a toolset to edit your code that slows you down?

The very process of learning and doing new things enhances your ability to continue to learn other new things. So look at it this way. Learn how to use RSE (and its related tools) to write your code or learn to write subprocedures called as functions instead of subroutines or learn to write more readable free format code - even if you only have a few months left in your coding career to use them. Why? Because you want to keep your brain in shape while you’re working for however many months or years that may be so that you’ll be ready to learn more about golfing, sailing, bird watching, gardening or whatever it is you want to do in your retirement. And continuing to learn has been shown to keep Alzheimer’s disease from striking.

Now, don’t get us started on the number of students we see in their forties who also seem to feel they cannot or should not learn something new. It’s not always the oldest students in our classes that resist change. That’s even more frustrating and a story for another day - assuming we can think if something constructive to say about it, that is.