Letters to Santa Bring New RDi Update

In a blog post a few weeks ago we mentioned that we had the opportunity to test the beta version of the new RDi support for fully free-form RPG and were impressed by it. We had originally thought it would be well into 2014 before this new support became publicly available, but apparently Santa--in the guise of IBM Rational--has delivered support for the new free format H, F and D specs now. We RPGers must have been very good this year!

The support was released as part of the latest fix pack for RDi. That takes it to version 9.0.1. You can get the details of the fixes and enhancements here  and the actual fix pack can be obtained here. Alternatively simply load the Installation Manager and tell it to update the product--that worked for us.

But it's not just about free-format RPG support. Much like letters to Santa, some RDi users have been asking Rational for usability enhancements. And at least four of those requests have been granted--early Christmas presents--as the features requested are included in this new fix pack. You see, we told you it pays to share your suggestions with the folks at Rational! This is done via Requests for Enhancements (RFEs) and we blogged about it quite some time ago. In case you missed it, take a look for the details of how to add your own suggestions to the list.

The RFE enhancements in this fix pack include improvements to the automatic removal of error messages after compiles and enhanced block nesting options. This includes the ability to set the color for the nesting indicators shown by Crtl-Shift-O. This is a small, but useful, change that we like because the old default of black just didn't show up that well.  

There are still a few missing features. For example the wizards for D-specs, Java method call and Subprocedures have not yet been released, but frankly we rarely use those so it is not a problem for us. Assumedly these features may be coming in subsequent fix packs. Considering the early indications were that we might have to wait until February for this new support, it is nice to get an early Christmas present! Thanks, Santa!

OpenPOWER Consortium

Did you hear the big announcement last week? Google, IBM and three other companies announced their plans to form the OpenPOWER Consortium‚ an open development alliance based on IBM's POWER microprocessor architecture. The Consortium intends to build advanced server, networking, storage and GPU-acceleration technology."

Perhaps some of you had the same reaction to this news that we did. After Googling to find out what on earth "GPU-acceleration technology" is (and we're still a bit fuzzy about that), we began to wonder - "What's in it for us?" or more specifically - what does this mean for i?  

We're software people. Who really cares about hardware? Well, we care only to the extent that the hardware that supports IBM i continues to exist and advance. The expected benefit of the consortium is to grow the base of POWER, which should, in turn, ensure the continued growth of the platform - to the Cloud and beyond.

The announcement - and particularly Google's participation in it - seems to be oriented toward Cloud servers. We believe IBM i is a particularly good platform for many types of Cloud applications, with its legendary reliability and integrated security features. We hope that IBM will also recognize that connection and maybe IBM i will have a role in their Cloud plans.

The last really big POWER news story was Watson - the “Jeopardy!”-winning system, which has since been busy in many more practical applications of that fascinating technology. We have followed the whole Watson story with great interest. It is one of the most innovative applications of software and database imaginable. But it's only specific relevance to those of us interested in IBM i is the fact that it runs on POWER. So much like the #OpenPOWER Consortium announcement, the impact on us is the resulting advancement of the POWER platform.

We're going to be following this story as it unfolds over the coming months. After all, the future of POWER is the future of #IBMi.

Sometimes the Simple Ways Are the Best

In last week's blog, we mentioned we were in Rochester for the kick off of the new Modernization Redbook. Thanks to those of you who commented on the blog. We're still open to suggestions, so keep them coming.

This week we were inspired by the signs we saw on the sidewalk outside the Rochester Lab every time we entered or left the building. You can see one of the signs here:

We were struck by what an effective, albeit low-tech, means of communication this was. After all, in a building filled with techies wouldn't your first thought as an organizer to be to spread the news by email, or Twitter, or a company bulletin board, or ... ? But you couldn't miss seeing this one. If, like Jon, you have well-developed skills for reading upside down, you would get the message at least twice a day. Hard to ignore.

If you've never been to the Rochester lab, you should know that instead of one building with just one or two entrances, the lab is made up of many smaller buildings joined by central hallways. Most buildings have their own door to the outside with a sidewalk leading up to it. These picnic signs were placed on the sidewalks leading up to each building entrance. So someone used a lot of chalk!

Why did the organizers choose to step backwards in time like this? Well, in the early days of email, and indeed even Twitter and Facebook, sending a message of this type would have almost guaranteed that your audience saw it. Today there is so much spam and other junk mail flying around--not to mention the pure volume of mail that most of us receive--that email is a significantly less effective vehicle than it once was. Even Twitter is so cluttered with junk that spotting the useful and interesting requires either a 24-hour devotion to the feed or additional tooling to help sort the wheat from the chaff.

So, the next time you need to impart some vital knowledge to your colleagues think about keeping it simple. But be aware that if your new tactics succeed in getting their attention, others may copy you and then you may end up in this kind of hell scape!

Back to the Future with RSE

If there's one thing that folks in the IBM i community love, it's a name change, right?

Well, here's one that we never thought we'd see - one that puts us back to where we were a few years ago. Nope, IBM i is not changing its name to iSeries or AS/400 (but that would have been a good April Fool's joke a few weeks ago, wouldn't it? Wish we had thought of that.)

We're sure you have all followed carefully the progression of packages and names for the Eclipse-based development toolset from WDSC (WebSphere Development Studio Client) to RDi (Rational Developer for i) and then to RDP, or RD Power as some prefer (Rational Developer for Power Systems). 

We're kidding of course. From the number of questions we get personally and see on forums, Internet lists, LinkedIn groups, etc., the litany of names has been a big source of confusion for many.

Guess what--we're going back to RDi again. Rational Developer for i. They've added "RPG and COBOL Tools" to the end of it, but still, it would seem that V9.0 (for those who have lost count, the current version is V8.5.1) will be called Rational Developer for i - or, we presume, RDi for short, as before.

We haven't seen any information yet on pricing, but we're hopeful that there won't be a significant increase beyond perhaps the (sadly) all-too-predictable 15% that seems inevitable with each turn of the crank.

As far as enhancements to function for IBM i RPG and COBOL developers, we haven't seen a lot. It appears that IBM Data Studio is now packaged with the new version vs being a free download that you could install yourself at 8.5.1.

Also listed are "Significant improvements to Remote Systems Explorer qualities of service." This sounds like lawyer-speak for bug fixes. We hope we're wrong but don't hold your breath. Then again, bug fixes would also be welcome.

There are two new packages, in addition to the basic RDi package:

1) Rational Developer for i RPG and COBOL + Modernization Tools, Java Edition - this would appear to replace the Rational Developer for Power Systems Software Power Tools for i.

2) RPG and COBOL + Modernization Tools, EGL Edition - this would appear to replace the oddly named RDi SOA toolset, which never changed to RDP when all the similar products did, for some reason.

From what we understand, if you have Rational Developer for Power Systems (what we've referred to as RDP) and have an active SW maintenance agreement, you will be entitled to a no charge license to the V9.0 RDi package. Someone reported on the WDSC-L list on Midrange.com that it will require a new Activation Kit to be used to install it, however.

Likewise, if you have a license to the RDP Power Tools, you're entitled to V9.0 RDi  + Modernization Tools, Java Edition, and if you have a license to RDi SOA, you're entitled to V9.0 RDi  + Modernization Tools, EGL Edition - both assuming active SW maintenance, of course.

So is all this good news, bad news or no news?

Until pricing is clear and, of course, we see how well the actual V9.0 code performs, it's hard to say. The new packages do seem to more accurately reflect what people really need. AIX/Linux developers have their own product and IBM i folks have RDi - as we did before. If you want/need more significant Java and/or EGL support, there are additional features for that.

Anything that simplifies the ordering process is a step in the right direction of course. But will the Rational reps stop trying to write up orders for RAD when IBM i shops call to get "Rational" to develop their RPG code? We can but hope! 

Surprise Someone!

Preface: In case you missed it, IBM has kicked off an ongoing IBM i 25th anniversary celebration. We will continue our tributes and reminiscences here in the weeks to come, leading up to the actual anniversary in June. Thanks to those of you who have shared your early memories so far. You can follow the bigger celebration by viewing the IBMi25 Facebook page (bit.ly/ibmi25). There are some really fun things happening there.

But today's blog is not about what happened 25 years ago - it's about what is happening today - in your IBM i shop. If someone walked into your shop today, would all the applications look like they might also be 25 years old?

We don't mean for this to ignite the debates on whether green screens are evil or whether they are the most practical and robust way to do data entry. We're not necessarily talking about putting a pretty face on all your existing applications, important as that may be.

What we're talking about today is anticipating the needs of the business and your end users - and not just meeting those needs - perhaps even exceeding them. Surprise someone with what You and i (to borrow Steve Will's line) can do for them.

Look around your shop and talk to the people running the business and we're sure you'll find many ideas of ways you can make their lives easier and make the business more efficient and profitable. Maybe there's a function crying out for a mobile app that runs on a tablet or smart phone to better enable people in the field or on the shop floor to work smarter. Maybe a dashboard would help executives make better decisions. Maybe a browser-based report with the ability to sort, filter and export the data to a spreadsheet would more efficiently replace a collection of spooled file reports currently languishing in OUTQs somewhere.

If you're thinking - "Sure, but I can't do any of those things, I'm just an RPG programmer" - think again. It is probably much easier than you think.

This post was inspired by a recent discussion with a software vendor at a conference. He was frustrated - not because he wasn't able to talk to a lot of programmers and explain to them how his product could make it simple for RPGers to write and deploy mobile applications - he had talked to and convinced many that they could, indeed do this. However, far too many of them seemed to be filing that information away for when it may be needed "someday" - when someone comes to them to ask them for a mobile app that runs on i.

Sadly, far too often, when a need for a web or mobile app or a dashboard arises in a company that runs its business on i, the IBM i programmers are not the first people that come to mind as being able to implement such things. Sure, they are good at keeping the payroll checks printing and the invoices going out, but modern, web and mobile things? That's a job for - well, almost anyone except our RPG programmers.

Why? Perhaps because far too often that's all we've provided. If you're waiting for someone to come and ask you for a mobile or web app or a BI solution, you may be waiting a long time. They may never ask you - they may ask the Oracle DBA (who is there because of some small stand-alone application that crept in when no one asked you), or go out and find a "Windows solution" (and we use that term very loosely!).

So what can you do? Surprise someone.

Find a small project that can have a big impact with relatively little effort - most likely with the help of a tool or two. Some of those tools may be free; some may have a cost, but even then, most of them have free trials available. You may be amazed at what you can do in a very few hours with the help of some of these tools. We'll be talking about a couple of free ones in our next EXTRA article appearing in a week or so. Check the comments below for a link to it when it is published.

The goal here is to do something quickly - not taking weeks of planning and months of development time. Create something in a few hours or, at most, days that may not be perfect, but will cause people to say "I never knew you could do things like this!"

You'll find that it can be great fun to spread your wings and do something new and different. And most importantly, you will establish yourself as the go-to person for modern applications. Perhaps the person you'll surprise most about what You and i can do is yourself. Go ahead - surprise someone this week.

Close Encounters of the AS/400 Kind

As Steve Will revealed in his blog yesterday, there's going to be a lot going on in the IBM i world over the next few months to celebrate the "birth" of the AS/400 25 years ago. Yes it has been 25 years and boy does that make us feel our age a little today.

We've decided that we'll use this blog over the next few months to post a few of our own memories, so instead of writing this as a joint effort and letting you work out who-wrote-what we're going to write these pieces from our individual perspectives. What about your own early AS/400 experiences? Please tell us about them in the comments section of the blog.

Susan's Early AS/400 Encounters

25 years seems like a long time, but as they say, time flies when you're having fun! And my years on this platform have seen tons of fun.

After a few years as an IBM customer in Atlanta where I developed a passion for the System/38, I joined IBM as a S/38 specialist Systems Engineer (remember those?).  Within IBM, I started to hear rumors about a new system being developed in Rochester, Minn., which would merge the S/36 and S/38 platforms. When I learned the new system would be based on S/38, that was enough for me. I made it my mission to get to Rochester to have some kind of role working with that new, future system.

I don't remember now how I learned of the opportunity, but I discovered they were looking for Systems Engineers to visit Rochester for a few weeks to work on the new system code named "Silverlake." I jumped on that with both feet. My application must have sounded a tad desperate, because I later heard from one of the people who screened the applications that the reaction to mine was "Hey, we've got a live one here!" 

I was one of the first to participate in the residency to work with Silverlake. I was in awe of the Rochester lab and the brilliant, dedicated folks who worked there. I didn't think I could get more enthusiastic about the system but I was wrong. Being in Rochester was just where I belonged.

I did go back home to Atlanta, but not before lobbying (more like arm-twisting or maybe just begging) to become part of a group Systems Engineers who would travel the world for several months before June 1988 to do pre-announcement teaching to IBMers about the technical details of the Silverlake system. I made the team and in the months leading up to the announcement of what became known as AS/400, I was in my element. I discovered that I was not only enamoured with the system, but also with teaching--something I had not done much of until that time.

I had been working on and around the AS/400 for so long by June 1988 that the announcement itself seemed almost anti-climatic to me. Even so, I had found my niche and was thrilled at the thought of the future before me. Not long after, I moved to Rochester--it was inevitable--and found that I even loved Rochester itself--all except for the weather!

I'm no longer in Rochester and no longer with IBM, but I'm still every bit the AS/400 (aka iSeries, aka IBM i) lover that I was 25 years ago. And I'm still thrilled at the future of this platform.

Jon's Road to AS/400dom

Back in 1986 I was working as a consultant, mostly specializing in converting systems from other manufacturers to the System/38. However, at the time I first heard about the possibility of a contract at IBM I was working on a System/36. IBM, it turned out, were looking for someone who knew COBOL on the S/36 and S/38 and who also had some exposure to the internals of compilers. IBM wanted someone who could take over the maintenance of the S/36 and S/38 compilers to allow their existing staff to work on a "new product." Like most in the community, I had already heard the rumors of a new system that would replace the S/36 and S/38, so the possibility of working alongside its developers was intriguing.

Perhaps I was the only one they interviewed that had the required qualifications. Or it could have been my telling the interviewer that it would be good to have the opportunity to fix a few of the bugs in the S/38 COBOL compiler that I had discovered over the years. Either way I got the job and started work in February 1987. The first bug I handled on my own? A problem with S/38 COBOL reported by the Dallas Cowboys!

Over the months I picked up bits and pieces about the new system, including the fact that the testing was all being done on modified S/38s--there was no actual AS/400 hardware in Toronto. Even then I wasn't allowed to actually see the system it was locked away in a separate area of the machine room under additional security. This always struck me as somewhat amusing because there was really nothing to see, and, from what we read in the trade publications, the press already knew far more about the system than we lowly lab rats did.

After the AS/400 server's formal announcement things relaxed a little and having (I guess) proved myself on the S/36 and S/38 compilers I was asked to do some work on the COBOL/400 compiler. One of the first tasks I got involved with was checking the compiler and run time error messages. As part of automating the foreign language translation of the messages the English versions were being "sanitized" to get rid of words such as "execute" that caused translation problems. Some of the sanitized messages were funny, but the best we encountered was one where the term "Secondary card hopper" had been converted into the politically correct--but completely meaningless: "Not so important card hopper."

After 18 months on contract I joined the lab full time, but that's a story for another day.

Blogs and Such

Some weeks potential subjects for this blog literally trip over one another in their attempts to get to the front of the queue. Then there's this week.

We were all set. We had what we thought was the perfect subject for a blog post and it all evaporated when we found that the folks involved in the project were not ready to go public yet. For some reason when that happens, it always seems to make it harder to find a topic because in your mind the blog is already written. Try as we may that's what ours minds go back to every time we try to come up with a new topic. Maybe it's just us?

We came upon a good source of IBM-related blogs at www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/--or at least we thought so when we first started reading. There's lots of good and interesting stuff on the site about a variety of topics including Java, mainframes, Domino, AIX, DB2 and general business issues. Plus a few subjects that are barely IBM related at all except for the employer of the blogger.

If IBM is involved in it, somebody is blogging about it. Except ... well you've probably guessed what's coming next. From this site, one could come to the conclusion that a complete dearth of IBMers are working on i blogging. But we all know this isn't true, of course. There's Steve Will, Dawn May, Mike Cain and Tim Rowe--to name just a few that we read regularly. We confess that we didn't read every single entry in every single blog (there are a lot of them) but a Google search restricted to the site revealed only one reference even when we included AS/400, iSeries and Systemi in the search terms. Unfortunatly that one reference was to a blog that apparently no longer exists. We couldn't find it on the page linked to the blogger's name.

We looked for a link where we could report such glaring omissions, but if there is one we couldn't find it. Hopefully some of the IBMers who read this blog can help remedy this situation. It really seems like an interesting site (although it could do with a topic area cross reference). Guess we should be used to it by now, but that doesn't mean we have to take it lying down!