Boost Your RDi productivity With iSphere

Back in March 2013 we wrote an article for the IBM i Extra enewsletter in which we covered the basics of the new iSphere plug-in for RDi. Since that time, iSphere has received several enhancements, so when we saw the announcement this week of an updated version, we decided we had to take another look. Boy are we glad we did! The range of features they have added to this excellent tool is impressive.

We intend to do a complete report, which we will be publishing in an upcoming edition of the IBM i Extra enewsletter, but we wanted to give our fellow RDi enthusiasts a heads-up in advance because some features are so good you should be using them today.

The latest version includes the following features:

• Message File Searching and Editing
• Binding Directory Editor
• Compare/Merge Editor
• Fast search feature for source files.
• Ability to open spooled files in Text, HTML or PDF format.
• Task Tags
• Decorators for objects in the RSE tree view

The search capabilities alone are worth the price of admission. They are blazingly fast. Quite how they have managed to so significantly outperform IBM's own source search capabilities we don't know, but they have--by an order of magnitude. The developers claim up to 60 times faster than IBM's version and based on our limited experience we would not argue with that claim.

Task tags are a nice extension to the standard task support. Simply add a simple comment to your source file to remind you to perform a specific task (e.g., "// TODO must add prototype definitions") and when you save the source a new task is added to the task list. Later, when you find the time to catch up on some of your outstanding tasks, simply clicking on a specific item opens the source file and positions to the task marker. Later, when you have completed your work, simply delete the comment (or just remove the characters "TODO" from the text), save the file and the outstanding task list is automagically updated.

Last, but not least, the new Decorator support. When enabled (via Preferences) the file/member/object description is displayed alongside the object's name. Makes it so much easier to see which source member (for example) it is that you need to open.

You can download the latest version of the plug-in from iSphere's SourceForge page. Documentation is a little thin on the ground right now although some has been incorporated in RDi's help system. The only "official" install instructions we can find are in the project's wiki. The installation is covered here. Don't skip the final step, it installs the server components which are essential to the plug-in function.

We really think you'll enjoy using this new tool. Our congratulations to the development team; it really appears to be a great productivity booster.   

OCEAN Views

Last week we spoke at the OCEAN User Group's annual conference in Costa Mesa in (normally) sunny California. It was great to see that like several other IBM i events lately, their numbers were up from previous years at the main event. They also had excellent attendance at the dinner and keynote session, featuring Alison Butterill talking about modernization and at a pre-conference workshop on Ruby for IBM i.

This year the group also tried out the idea of running in-depth workshops including hands-on Labs on the Saturday after the main event. We taught an introductory RDi class, IBM's Dan Cruikshank taught SQL topics including IBM Data Studio and Larry Bolhuis taught systems management. We're told that there were approximately 100 attendees at the workshops, which means that 100 people gave up part of their weekend to learn--and that is really encouraging.

OCEAN is a great group and if you live in reach of the Orange County, California-area you should definitely be a member.

OCEAN works with a local technical university to host the main conference and the workshops (the keynote and dinner were held at a hotel to accommodate larger numbers in a single session). We've mentioned this idea of using colleges for conferences before. It really can be a practical solution for local user groups that have considered doing events but found hosting them in hotels expensive and inflexible. In fact it does seem to be a bit of a trend with TUG, our local Toronto user group, holding its TEC event at a local college. We have heard that the OMNI group is working on a similar idea for an upcoming event in the Chicago area.

Other Items

In last week's blog we mentioned punch cards in what reader Bob L. considered a derogatory fashion:

"Don't belittle the punched card. Its legacy lives on: after all, that is why you still have to remind those "young young" programmers that the code must start on or after column 8 and end at column 80!!"

We certainly didn't mean to belittle the punch card (except for maybe those silly little 96 column things) they were really useful for writing notes. Jon remembers that in his early days of presenting, notes on punch cards were a godsend because their very size forced you to keep to bullet points so you were never tempted to just read your presentation. These days he couldn't do that even if he could find a supply as he so rarely wears a jacket to keep them in.

Before we go wanted to thank those readers of our recent article on tools to help you trace program execution, "Tracing Our Steps," who pointed out alternative tools. We haven't had a chance to check them all out yet but we will do so and report back in the article comments and also here in the blog.

We actually get to spend the next two weeks at home, which will be a rare treat this summer. Who knows? Maybe one or two chores around the house might even get done!

Programming Highs and Tire Lows

Last week we experienced an interesting mix of high and low points.

The big high for us was teaching a class of Java programmers about the joys of RPG. We also spent a little time on RDi, but since they already used Rational Application Developer for their Java work that was mostly just to introduce them to the IBM i specific features.

Three things helped make this an enjoyable class to teach:

1. The students were all young--and we don't mean young in our terms (i.e., anyone less than 50) we mean young young.
2. They were all enthusiastic and asked the right questions, which clearly showed that they were not only understanding the language but also getting a feel for its power and simplicity. We'll be going back to complete their training later this year once the students have had a chance to absorb the initial lessons and we're looking forward to it.
3. This was our first opportunity to teach the new all-free-form RPG flavor of the language. While it was a lot more work to retrofit our teaching materials than we had anticipated (never thought about how many of the examples have F, D and P specs in them!), what a difference it makes when teaching RPG to Java (or C/C++/C# or PHP, etc) developers. Those pesky columns--even when just for data declarations--always caused so much consternation in past classes. This time, the only hitch was the occasional need to remind them that the code must start on or after column 8 and end at column 80.

This class has reaffirmed our belief that all too often, trying to replace your retiring RPG programmers with experienced RPGers is a waste of time. Not that there aren't good RPGers out there looking for work, but most are too expensive for companies are looking for junior to intermediate level staff. Either that or their "30 years of experience" is actually three years repeated 10 times over because they are so reluctant to learn new skills. Case in point--and one of the lows of the week--we had an email concerning a shop where the staff (we won't dignify them by using the terms "programmers", "developers" or "RPGers") are busily stripping out things like embedded SQL and prototyped program calls whenever they have to maintain a modern program because they can't be bothered to learn this "new-fangled stuff." They probably rue the passing of the tabulator and the punched card too. Sad, so sad. No wonder the shop is moving away from the IBM i.

The other high/low mixture of the week concerned our rental car. Very soon after we set off from the airport a low tire pressure warning appeared. We checked but the tire appeared to be fine. Given that rental car companies often do a lousy job of what would be the PDI (pre-delivery inspection) at your local car dealer we have encountered such false warnings many times before. We kept checking but despite the warning light the tire appeared fine. Until it wasn't. Suddenly it lost pressure so we took it to the local tire store to see if they could fix it. Nope. It had a side wall leak, which couldn't be plugged. No problem, they inflated the tire again and we called the rental car company. "Yes sir - we will happily exchange your car. Just drive to your nearest location and they will help you." Fine except only corporate locations would do and the nearest was a 90+ minute round trip away and it was already getting late in the day. It was a slow leak so hopefully it would last until the next evening when we could drive down and swap the car.

The next morning arrived sunny, hot and humid with the tire completely flat. Changing a tire while in work clothes and 95 degree weather had not been high on Jon's wish list for the day but. ...

Luckily that was the end of the lows. We drove the car back to the rental company and, to cut a long story short, the only replacement vehicle they had available was a Mercedes 350. Not a bad swap for a Chevy Impala! Only problem is that Jon is enjoying driving it so much that he wants to keep it. Sadly that is not on the cards but at least we get to use it for a few more days.

  

Adding Web Tooling to RDi

We recently had an email from a fellow RDi user asking if we knew what had happened to the HTML editing capabilities that had been in WDSC. He had not needed to use them since switching to RDi and now needed to use them. The simple answer, sadly, is that when IBM made the move from WDSC to the RDx versions, the additional Web tooling was dropped from the base package. We blogged about it a while back. The tooling has always remained available but in the higher priced configurations of Rational Developer.

After further research to establish that nothing was available in the basic RDi tooling, we went in search of some Eclipse plugins. Our initial attempts were not very helpful as "HTML" as a keyword to search the Eclipse market brings up hundreds of options. Not only that, but as it happens RDi is not based on the latest-and-greatest version of Eclipse (Kepler), but on the previous version (Juno). This increased the difficulty of the search. Another challenge is that it wasn't immediately obvious to us which of the tools was free and which for-fee. So, we did what we often do under such circumstances and reached out to the RDi community on midrange.com to see what others were using.

Several people suggested that we install the Eclipse Web Tools Platform extension to give us both HTML and additional Java capabilities, so that's the direction we chose. But that still left the "How" part and although we have done this before, each version of Eclipse is a little different. That's when another suggestion from the RDi group helped out. This time they pointed us to the Useful Stuff blog, which provided step-by-step instructions with images for _exactly_ what we needed. We followed the instructions and it worked beautifully.

Of course it's always dangerous to let Jon lose on anything like this as he inevitably gets into "Ooo, that looks interesting" mode. This time he decided that while he was extending his workbench he should try adding some PHP support. He's been using both Zend Studio and the PHP version of NetBeans, but thought it would be nice to have a single IDE for those times when he's working on a project that uses PHP, HTML and RPG. Because Zend Studio is based on the Eclipse PHP Development Tools project (PDT), it would (or should) be a familiar environment and indeed that is the way it turned out. For those of you thinking of following in his footsteps, we offer one word of caution: To find the PHP tools you can filter for "PHP" (just as the Useful stuff blog suggested you filter for "Web" earlier,) but when you do, you'll see two sets of options. You do _not_ want the ones identified as SDK. Just pick the three items identified simply as PHP Development Tools (PDT) and all will be well.

Once we have had a chance to work a little more with these Web tools we'll report back. In the meantime if you find any other Eclipse projects that are useful for RDi users, please let us know. We are already familiar with those from SoftLanding and TaskForce's iSphere  (which we hope to review soon) but are always happy to hear of others via the comments section.  

RSE Trials (and Tribulations?)

In our latest EXTRA article we wrote about our favorite tool for developing RPG/COBOL/CL/DDS code--RSE, which is currently packaged in RDi, previously in RDP and WDSC.

In that article, we pointed out that there is a 60-day free trial for RDi. We've heard of some issues users have had related to downloading the trial and then turning the trial into a licensed program. Of course, the second part assumes, as we anticipate, that you will be sold on the value of the tool by the end of the trial period. So we thought we'd point you to a few hints and tips that we've found on both of those processes.

Downloading the trial code. The download page is easy enough to find here. There are a few things to keep in mind.

 

• You will need an IBM ID to do the download. It's free but a step you'll need to take before you can complete the download. You won't need your IBM customer number or anything so it's relatively painless to get an ID if you don't already have one.
• Later you'll see that there are two different ways to download--via Download Director or http. A link on the page describes some of the differences. Download Director seems to have better recovery options if you encounter problems during the download but your mileage may vary on that.
• Next you'll see that there are four different zip files (disk images) to be downloaded, each is more than 1500 MB. We've heard widely varying experiences of how long it takes to do the downloads. Suffice it to say that many (but not all) have found the download to be measured in hours rather than minutes. A couple folks' downloads have taken days! So be prepared for a wait. If you're just loading the base RPG/COBOL tools then you can install with only the first two disk images. However, when you go to apply Fix Packs, it may ask for the other two images because there may be fixes for those options. So although you will probably need all four disk images eventually, you can do your initial install once you have the first two. If you need help with what to do after downloading the disk images, take a look here. Choose Installing > Installing Rational Developer for i > Installing from an electronic image: task overview.
• It's also possible to install it via the internet without requiring a download of the disk images. This is the way we installed trials of earlier releases but this time the trial download page doesn't mention that. It does require a bit of manual intervention so if you want to try that option, take a look at the helpful guide, which was helpfully provided by Eric Simpson on the IBM developerWorks site. Jump down to the update on June 19, 2013, on that page for the details. You may find this faster if you're just looking to install RDi on one workstation rather than several.
• Next, let's say you have the trial installed and, perhaps with the help of our "RSE Quick Start Guide," you get started using it and get hooked. So you purchase a license to RDi. The license can be purchased in two says--via Passport Advantage (aka the software channel) or through the same way you order your hardware and operating system, probably from an IBM business partner (aka the hardware channel). We won't attempt to explain why you might buy it one way vs. the other because we're not really clear on that question ourselves. (If any of our readers can help answer that from your own experience, feel free to comment below.)
• Once you purchase your license, you will need to get a file that contains something called an Activation Kit. Once you get your Activation Kit, it's pretty straightforward how to use it. If you need guidance, the same link we referenced for help with the installation process has a section on "Activating your product." Getting the file containing the Activation Kit can sometimes be more challenging. Once again, a helpful IBMer, Edmund Reinhardt, this time, provided some documentation on that subject on developerWorks.

After you have installed and successfully activated RDi, enjoy the great features you find there. And if there are features you think it really needs that you don't find there, consider putting in an RFE (Request for Enhancement), as we blogged about some time ago.

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!

Editing the New TR7 Free Format RPG

Just a short blog this week as we know that all you really have time for right now is thoughts of turkey and Black Friday sales. Or at least that is true for our American readers. Our Canadian readers  already had Thanksgiving back in October (which, as usual, we missed because we were running the RPG & DB2 Summit at the time). Canadians still get Black Friday sales courtesy of Canadian retailers who are convinced we'll all do our Christmas shopping in the U.S. if they don't offer sales. They may be right!

The real point of today's post, however, is to give you a heads up on the upcoming support in RDi for the new free-form capabilities added to RPG in V7.1's TR 7. The more we use TR7's free-form coding style the more we like it. Jon has even started coding F specs again as opposed to cloning them! But it is not as easy to use as it should be when your editor insists that everything you key is an error! Of course, for SEU users it will go on being an error since SEU is not being updated.

Unfortunately the update to RDi was not available with TR7, but we were fortunate to have the opportunity to beta test the new support and we must admit we're impressed. Not only is the new RPG syntax fully supported, but the content assist feature (initiated by Control + Space) is even better than normal and will be a huge help to those trying to learn the new syntax. In essence what happens is that if you press Ctrl/Space after coding (say) Dcl-F to declare a file you will be told that a file name is needed, type a name and the assist will list the device types available, and so on. Perhaps even more importantly, we have found that this prompting works well even on existing lines and by simply moving the cursor along a line you can see the definitions for all of the keywords appear. Very useful.

We won't go into any more detail as we are aware that this is a beta version and so not everything is currently working fully, but it is promising and we're looking forward to getting our hands on the real thing when IBM releases it-whenever that is.

Follow-up on RDi V9 and Data Studio

We’re hoping you are all enjoying your Canada Day or Independence Day celebrations this week. Or, if you're not located in Canada or the United States, we'd still like to wish you a happy July.

Last week we reported on our early experiences with V9 of RDi. Since then, we've had some comments and emails that clarify some of the issues that we experienced. IBM's Edmund Reinhardt also made a number of points regarding these experiences. It was nice to find out that the improvements in speed weren't just a figment of our imaginations. Thanks Edmund - you and the whole RDi team do a great job of keeping in touch with your users.

Also regarding V9 RDi: we said last week that "Adding Data Studio to our workbench seems to have caused the regular help system to fail.” It seems that was not the cause of the problem, but instead the failure might be related to IBM's help system for RDi V9 being offline. When we initially loaded V9, we apparently did not get a complete download of the help info. We hoped that using the update would remedy that, but so far we're still getting connection failures on the update. Hopefully IBM will resolve this issue soon.

With regards to Data Studio (DS), we commented on the problems we had with IBM's Web page, "Data Studio V4.1 features: by data server and component." We haven't really had any updates on that, but we've had help from Paul Bailey via the WDSC-L mailing list at Midrange.com, who had set up DS to use the "IBM Data Server Driver for JDBC and SQLJ (JDBC 4.0)" option, and found that it was clearly one of the drivers that IBM were referencing in the "X1" category. So, now we can try out some of those new functions – we'll report back on what we find. We're certain that we had tried this driver in the past and received a "not found" type of error, but following Paul's suggestion, we checked it out. Sure enough, it worked. Of course, the remaining problem is that there is no provision for using the library list, as this is a generic IBM driver. Luckily, the connection filtering in DS is good enough to largely alleviate this issue.

Speaking of library lists, reader Art Blose, commenting on the blog and in an email, passed on some information that we had forgotten concerning DS default JT400 driver. You can specify a list of library names on the connection string, so it is possible to effectively specify the library list you want without having to specify filtering criteria. There are, in fact, a number of other options you can also specify on the connection string; for a full list, check out this document.

To sum up the current situation with Data Studio: it seems that you can either have a library list (using the default JT400 driver) and miss a number of the new features in DS, or you can miss out on the library list and have all of the features available. We suspect it’s the latter, but time will eventually tell. Either way, we do like DS, and it is certainly a lot snappier to use than Navigator.

 

 

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! 

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 Software).

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 - we’re hopeful that there won’t be a significant increase beyond perhaps the (sadly) all-too-predictable 15% or so 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 versus 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 2 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!