The Summit in the Corral

Sorry we didn’t get to “chat” with you all last week ‑ we were so tied up running our RPG & DB2 Summit in Dallas that the blog fell by the wayside.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Summit. Getting together with more than 150 of our fellow IBM i aficionados is always invigorating, particularly when folks come up to you after one of your sessions and tell you that the information “more than paid for the whole event.” When we first arrived at the hotel though we did begin to wonder how things were going to turn out. This picture will give you a good idea why:

This is what we found in the ballroom one evening! This beautiful Texas Longhorn and about 99 friends were being auctioned off. Cattle in a hotel ballroom? Yup ‑ we were in Texas after all. But not just any cattle ‑ these were very expensive breeding stock. Top price paid for a bull was apparently just shy of $500,000 and the top cow went for about $340,000. Don’t think anyone is planning on turning them into burgers any time soon! We took a lot of photos of these beautiful creatures out in the rear parking lot (which had been turned into a stockyard) and will pass the link along in a future blog post once they have all been uploaded.

We had been assured that the cleanup on Sunday would remove all trace (including smells) of the cattle. We really had our doubts about that when we came downstairs for breakfast on Sunday morning! It seemed a little like eating breakfast in a barn ‑ not that Susan has ever done that, but she can now imagine what it might be like.

Turned out the hotel’s cleanup plans were based in part on the assumption that they would be able to have the rear doors open all day Sunday. The weather however had other ideas and the wind direction rendered that impossible. By the time our Monday Headstart sessions came around, there was certainly still an interesting aroma around the place. But the hotel moved us to rooms a little further from the problem so it was definitely tolerable. By the time the Summit proper started on Tuesday, the smell was all but eliminated and all went ahead as planned. By the end of the week, you’d never have known that the cattle had ever been there. But we still nicknamed our main meeting room as “the Corral” for the week in honor of the earlier inhabitants of the room.

Before we close, an update on a completely different note. Back in December, we blogged about “The Hour of Code.” In that piece, we mentioned that a version of the graphical programming language Scratch from MIT was used in the tutorial. This week we saw on KickStarter a new project established to fund ScratchJr ‑ a new version of Scratch aimed at children 5 - 7 years of age. If you think that is too young to be able to program then all we can say is “Watch the video.” The project has already met its funding goal for producing the iPad version. If they get enough additional funding they will be producing a version for Android and add features to allow the sharing of ScratchJr projects with friends and family. They will also be able to create additional resources for parents and teachers.

We think this is a fabulous project well worth our support. We encourage you, our readers, to also chip in a few dollars to support this effort. We need more kids who can think logically. ScratchJr can help achieve that.

 

 

It's a Good News Week!

Good news? Really? Looking at today's news, it is hard to believe there is any good news to be found. But this spring is indeed bringing a much needed batch of good news to the IBM i community.

What news? Well we are currently at the WMCPA annual conference and are absolutely delighted to see that attendance is at a much higher level than it has been in recent years. Not only that but they have set new records for vendor and sponsor participation.

From here we go directly to Dallas for our spring RPG & DB2 Summit. We are also seeing a significant increase in attendance for that event. Indeed, we ran out of space for exhibitors and even closed registration recently for fear that overcrowding could impact the comfortable, interactive feel of the event.

We are also hearing similar good news from organizers of other upcoming conferences like NEUGC and TUG TEC. From what we hear, COMMON's spring event is also seeing a similar resurgence in numbers.

This is good news for two reasons. First, it is indicative that the economy is turning around and companies are beginning to invest again. Second, and more importantly for us, it means they are investing in their IBM i assets! And that has to be good news for all of us.

But this is no time to breathe a sigh of relief and relax. This may be a limited-time opportunity. For now, IBM i shops seem to be investing in what they have and in finding out what they could be doing. But unless we "carpe diem" and get rapidly involved in modernizing our applications and development practices we may well miss the boat. If we do not respond to the needs of the business, we will find ourselves once again having to defend against other inferior "solutions." For inspiration, take a look at our previous blog post about surprising your users. 

So now is a good time to tell you the other piece of good news. The draft version of the new Application Modernization Redbooks publication is going to be available "any day now" -- Tim Rowe of IBM just told the audience at WMCPA so it must be true. He even had a printed copy with him; it is about the size of a large telephone directory and there's still a bit more content to come.

So it is a good news week. Make the most of it -- go out and DO something!

Offer Alternatives, Don't Whine

Last night we attended a meeting organized by our city aimed at gathering public feedback on potential changes to the road adjacent to our house. The traffic volume has increased radically over the last few years and it has become increasingly obvious that something needs to be done to alleviate the problems this is causing.

The most depressing thing about the meeting was not the attitude of the city staff and consultants--they seemed to be trying very hard to explain the issues and potential solutions and seemed to be amenable to alternatives. The problem we had was with the attitudes of the whiners who only had one message, "No." This despite the fact that they are complaining loudly about the problems that the current traffic volumes are causing them. But they just seem to expect all the issues to disappear magically without any changes. In other words they are not interested in offering alternative solutions, they seem to just want to whine.

In some ways it reminded us of some of the discussions that have occurred over the years within our IBM i community. There are many examples ranging from the pricing and capabilities of RDi, new features in RPG, advertising (or the lack thereof) and more. Much of the time people just seem to want to complain rather than offer alternatives. We know we've been guilty of this ourselves on occasion.

The result we suspect, is that in certain areas of IBM the IBM i community are just regarded as a bunch of whiners who will never be happy no matter what.

Part of the problem of course is that our options for directly addressing issues to IBM are somewhat limited. Gone are the days when you could have a chat with your local SE or salesman and they would pass the complaint up the management chain on your behalf. Some users, such as members of the Large Users Group and ISVs have direct access chains, but the rest of us are more limited.

However, a number ways exist to let your voice be heard by those who count. And trust us, they make a difference.

One way is to use COMMON's requirements system and you don't have to be a member of COMMON to use this. The requirements system can be found here. COMMON consolidates this feedback and takes it forward to IBM.

If you have an IBM customer number you can also "talk" directly to IBM via what IBM refers to as the Design Change Request process.

If your requirements relate to Rational tools, such as RDi, you need to use the Request for Enhancement process. Start from here and select "Rational" as the brand and "Developer for Power Systems" as the product. The last couple of releases of RDi have specifically included features requested via this process.

Last but not least you can always comment directly on the blogs of the IBM i movers and shakers such as IBM i's lead architect Steve Will.

Many ways are available to let IBM know of your concerns, wants and needs, but whatever approach you take, remember that specific, practical suggestions and requests are welcome and useful. Whining is rarely welcome or useful.

P.S. Many thanks to those of you who have responded to our request for feedback in last week's post about testing. We're hoping more of you have some kind of testing in place for your applications! We'd love to hear from more of you. It's not too late.

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.

 

 

Simplifying Complex Concepts

As our regular readers know, we're fans of simplification in our code. Today's application needs are getting more complex every day, but we advocate that developers strive to hide as much of that complexity as possible. Open Access is one tool that can help in that aim; subprocedures are another. The nitty-gritty detailed code must be there but it doesn't need to be in the forefront.

When it comes to talking about our beloved IBM i system to non-i people, simplification is also important. Most of us understand the things that make our platform unique (e.g., single-level storage, object orientation, TIMI and the integration of not only DB2 but also most of the other bits and pieces needed to make a business application system run).

But can we explain these concepts in a few words, holding the attention of the listener while getting across succinctly the value of these concepts? Most of us can't. We get caught up in the technical details that seem so cool but can sometime muddy the waters of understanding the business value.

Here's help. Hopefully you all followed the 25th anniversary celebration activities earlier in the year, including the publication of 25 vignettes, each celebrating one aspect of the power of our platform. We looked forward to reading each one as they came out--25 nice rah-rah moments for the IBM i community.

Recently, we've gone back to revisit some of those vignettes in a slightly different context, using them as vehicles to advocate for the i platform to the uninitiated. Rather than simply relegating these to the annals of history or preaching to the choir, maybe we could make use of some of them to preach to others.

You probably read them, but how well do you remember them? For example:

• How is TIMI like a pair of shoes?
• How can car keys be used to describe the value of single-level storage?
• What does Harry Potter have in common with IBM i? 
• An operating system without an integrated database is like a hotel room without a bed--unthinkable.

We all need to be advocates of our platform. Even if you don't know of any potential threats to the platform in your own shop, it's still wise to ensure that the powers that be truly understand the value of what you have.

Do yourself, and your business, a favor by arming yourself with some of the simple analogies embodied in these vignettes so that you can drop them into conversations and meetings to illustrate the value of IBM i.

From our System i Developer iAdvocate page you can download the whitepaper that IBM created with the 25 vignettes and you can also get a set of PowerPoint slides in case you get a chance to insert some of these into a presentation. You may even want to remind yourself and your colleagues of these gems by downloading and printing a poster of the 25 vignettes here.

You'll also find many other iAdvocate resources on the Web page mentioned above. It never hurts to be prepared for the occasion that may arise to advocate for the best platform there is!

i Advocates, Unite!

In November, we wrote about our first iAdvocate Tutorial session. We’ve just finished our spring 2013 RPG & DB2 Summit, which contained our second iAdvocate session.

As with the one in October, the iAdvocate session was a hit. We were better prepared this time with more chairs in the room - good thing, since most of them were full! We even had some of the members of the local Atlanta IBM i users group (recently renamed from AMCU to iTAC) stop by to join in the conversation.

There were again many good points made. Someone asked where the younger developers for this platform are. We’ve asked that question a few times as well and explored a few potential answers. Of course, a look around the room showed that a larger than usual number of younger developers were present at the Summit this time. One of those spoke up and said that his shop has around 30 IBM i developers under the age of 30.

So we’re making progress! If that shop can do it, so can others. Mike led a discussion about investing in creating your own IBM i developers - trained in your own philosophy and practices. As Mike said “Give somebody a break . . . Start mentoring someone new.”

Aaron Bartell reminded us that if we want to attract younger developers, we need to make sure we’re doing modern things in our shops. “If I walked into a shop where people are still on V5R3, using columnar RPG and not using RDP for editing, I’d keep walking.” Well said, Aaron!

There was even more lively discussion on what Mike calls the “positive feedback loop” - singing the praises of our platform within the shop. Sometimes our system and its reliability and capability are taken for granted because no one ever hears about it. It sits there quietly running our core business applications smoothly and efficiently. But too often when it comes to some new whiz-bang BI or Web or mobile application, IBM i is not the first platform that comes to mind as the host - perhaps it’s not considered at all.

Mike gave many concrete suggestions on how to change that. One is to demonstrate that you care about the business and that you (and i) can help by scheduling time with a company business executive and asking him or her “What keeps you up at night?” Then go away and think about what you (and i) may be able to do to help alleviate the biggest concerns of the executives in your shop.

Get in a position to lead rather than wait for someone to come and ask you for something - because they may not ask you for it; they may ask someone else. And that’s how these other (inferior) platforms work their way into IBM i shops.

In this discussion, one of our favorite suggestions was that we put up a sign in each IBM i shop - similar to the safety signs that sometimes appear on factory floors - “NN days without an accident” - that says “IBM i has gone NNNN days with no unscheduled downtime.” Of course, we’ll need to allow for a much larger number of digits than most of those similar signs!

Mike challenged us to change the discussion - don’t ask Why i? - rather ask “Why not i?”

You can see the slides that Mike used to lead the iAdvocate discussion as well as many other resources, such as case studies and independent research papers on our iAdvocate page.

iAdvocate Advocating

Greetings from a grey day in Paris. We had been hoping to visit the Louvre today, but it turns out that Tuesday (the only day off we have here on this trip) is the one day per week it is closed. So instead we're writing this blog. Not a good trade-off in our opinion but perhaps it makes you feel better about not being in Paris!

Our blog on advocating for the IBM i drew quite a few comments and while we have responded to some in the blog, not everyone goes back and reads the comments so we thought we'd briefly revisit the topic today.

Tim commented that: "I think Jon you need to spend some time out here in the real world, on a daily basis, dealing with real CIO's that are continually degrading the IBM i as "Old Technology". We do indeed work with many clients where there are CIOs and other senior executives that feel exactly the same the same as the ones he describes. In such cases we do our best to help the IBM i proponents in the organization fight the misconceptions and demonstrate the value of IBM i." 

Tim also noted, "... and they think IBM has given up on the IBM i, and I alone can't fight this anymore, need some support from IBM directly. ..." That really is the point we were trying to make. As individuals we can't--that's why we need to work together. IBM is helping in many ways. When it comes to dispelling the notion that IBM has "given up," how much more definitive can you get than the statements from IBM Power Systems GM Colin Parris in the "IBM i Strategy and Roadmap"? His personal introduction concludes with this statement:

"You will find that our commitment to our IBM i clients, ISVs and business partners is solid and unchanged. We continue to make substantial investments in the future of IBM i as an important, strategic element in our IBM systems portfolio." 

That document also references the fact that more than 150,000 companies are using the platform. That's companies--not boxes. The number of boxes (and therefore licenses of the OS) is indeed shrinking. One of our clients is responsible for some 20-plus of that reduction. They went from more than 25 systems to five by consolidating their workloads on ever more powerful servers.

In his keynote presentation at the Summit, IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will also referenced the white paper and a number of other studies that demonstrate not only that IBM i is the TCO (total cost of ownership) leader, but it can also be a TCA (total cost of acquisition) leader. This is an issue that Paul raised in his comment. You can find Steve's presentation here (look at the 2nd chart on P4 for TCA figures). We're working on gathering more material of this type together and will let you know as soon as it is available.

In the meantime we'll leave you with part of a comment from Yvonne E. who noted: "While I do agree the frustration is valid how does that help the topic at hand?" We couldn't agree more. Our careers are based on IBM i. Advocating for the platform makes perfect sense if we want to continue to be gainfully employed and not have to go over to the dark side.

It would be wonderful if IBM were to suddenly agree with all of us that the IBM i platform deserves to be singled out as the best business application platform. But even if Big Blue did so tomorrow, it wouldn't dissuade us from advocating for the platform ourselves and encouraging everyone else to do the same. We can't control what IBM does or doesn't do, we can only control what we do. And we choose to advocate for i.