This PowerUp blog entry was written by Rick Flagler, who teaches as an Adjunct in the Computer Science department at Keene State College (KSC) in Keene, N.H. Rick has 30-plus years in IT in various development and management roles in manufacturing, working at his day job Timken Super Precision. Rick started the IBM midrange program at KSC more than 10 years ago and has since taught DB2/SQL and RPG classes.
I’ve written about grooming new IBM i talent before and I see others writing about it frequently, so it continues to be a topic of interest. I have a larger than usual class for DB2/SQL this semester. Some students show promise already as they make tables with DDS and SQL, join data from here to there and begin to think about taking requirements from specifications to objects. While nearly all prefer GUI to green screen, every once in a while someone gets how cool commands are, utilizing F9 and F4 like old veterans. One student has Telnet on his iPad–this is an interesting combination but wouldn’t it be great to have an app that lets us run Rational Developer for Power Systems running IBM i and IBM Access Navigator natively on the Apple iPad2? If you know how to do this, please write about it in Comments.
I don’t get to user groups as often as I once did. I always feel guilty about this. But, I don’t think I’m alone in this. User groups in some areas have lessened their number of meetings, are seeing reduced numbers of members or seeing less sharing of ideas. Why is this? Has the connectedness of the Internet killed the “community” in the world of IT? Maybe a little bit. And, what about the idea that you can “Google” anything to see how to do it? This is a quantity vs. quality situation many times.
We recently wanted to learn a little about Microsoft C# and how it could benefit us for applications and migrations of data to/from IBM i. So, we powered up the browser to look for threads about how to connect from C# to DB2. Many hits, some with dubious answers but eventually an excellent IBM Redbooks publication was located that provided a tutorial about this topic. Gotta love those Redbooks! This was great, but in the search process, I found websites where users apparently vie to be the best poster, the most frequent poster and, dare I speculate, the most “paid” poster? Do I have this right? A programmer, or someone pretending to be one, can author an article or tip about something and get paid a royalty for the tip? On IBM i, or any other platform, some of these tips appear, when read by a knowledgeable person, to be totally inaccurate; like the person writing them has never even been near the machine before. This is a trend I find disturbing. Caveat Emptor for sure! That’s where the user group meeting or website can be of real service. Some pre-screened topics by people you KNOW are competent.
I suggest the lack of the human interaction we found so popular in our earlier days of System/38 and AS/400 is something to be missed. The excitement of the sharing of great new technique, code snippets and ideas kept us coming to user group meetings each month. Sure, the Internet has great information, but the user groups provided a place to network face-to-face, exchange information, and hear about announcements and trends from interesting people.
One of my strategies has been to take a student to a user group meeting. Our local group will admit a student for free, a nod to growing the ranks of young IBM i professionals (YiPS). When I am teaching, every so often I see a student that suddenly “gets” the IBM i platform and its unique value. If so, I ask that student to attend a user group meeting. I hope this gives a sense of the ecosystem and maybe a job opportunity arises from the visit. At the very least, maybe the fledgling developer gets a vision of what these other IBM i programmers are considering important in their day jobs and what we’re all excited about.
I notice some of the frequent contributors to this magazine/website and others are getting younger. Hopefully this trend will continue. Long live the user group and IBM i!
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