Four Hundred Monitor, March 8

March 8, 2017 Dan Burger

It’s just an observation, but it seems Rational Developer for i (RDi) is more closely aligned with the desires of IBM i shops since it left the IBM Software Group and moved in with the IBM i development team. An example can be made of the latest RDi enhancements.

A little bit of play time with RDi helps developers understand the benefits that come with modern development. The same can be said about open source. It doesn’t seem i-oriented until you get a little closer to where the action is. Seeing may not be believing, but give it a fair shot.

Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

(iDevelop) The newest enhancement to the Rational Developer for i tool is a feature called refactoring. You may have already done some refactoring of RPG code, but referred to it by a different name. Converting existing fixed format RPG code to free format, for instance, is refactoring. But there are many kinds of refactoring. Read about it here.

(Open Your i) The value of open source is on display in this article that features a simple, open-source Python program that makes it easy to integrate open source programs with your database. With an open-source language and some basic SQL skills, you can write powerful applications to meet a ton of IBM i-centric needs.

(MCPress) Is there an IBM i benefit from using the Watson platform? One that is applicable for small to midsize organizations? One that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? First of all, examine your current reporting and analysis options and determine if an upgrade in that department could help your business be better.

(CIO) The 2017 State of the CIO report by CIO.com does an excellent job in reminding us of the eternal gap between the business and IT: While CIOs think of IT as a strategic business partner, business executives think of IT as an important, yet supporting, function. Is this a problem?

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources

(Maxava) Making a disaster recovery plan takes into account cloud and on-premise options, as well as monitoring and management considerations. This guide includes comprehensive checklists, easy to follow decision trees, and risk-cost calculators.

(IBM) The latest IBM i Technology Refresh will be available March 15, but the overview from IBM is available now on the developerWorks website. The list of categories includes DB2 for i, systems management, hardware, and open source. If you are running i 7.3, follow this link.

(IBM) The latest IBM i Technology Refresh will be available March 15, but the overview from IBM is available now on the developerWorks website. The list of categories includes DB2 for i, systems management, hardware, and open source. If you are running i 7.2, follow this link.

(IBM) The IBM i announcements for the 7.2 and 7.3 TRs don’t mention the three upcoming RPG enhancements that will be available through PTFs at the same time as the TRs. The PTFs will be available individually, and they will also be part of the upcoming 7.2 and 7.3 DB2 group PTFs.

(IBM) Rational Developer for i is a modern, Eclipse-based development tool for IBM i. It includes a visual editor; integrated file management; search edit, compile/build and debug capabilities; analysis tools; and debugger tools. This presentation–by Eric Simpson, RDi developer, release lead, and install architect–includes information on the newest enhancements, as well as feedback and direction setting.

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

March 8 — Webinar – Application and database developers with a combination of current skills and tools will easily outperform developers working with 20-year-old skills and tools. This session title “Be the Best IBM i Developer You Can Be” promises a lot. It begins with the basics for new developers and follows that up with tips and tricks to reduce maintenance and enhance development agility. Jon Paris, Trevor Perry, and Ray Everhart share their knowledge. The session begins at noon Central Time.

March 9 — St. Louis, Missouri – RPG enhancements in IBM i 7.2 and 7.3 are the featured topics at the regular monthly meeting of the Gateway/400 Group, a System i user group serving the greater St. Louis area. Barbara Morris, lead developer on the RPG compilers, will be the guest speaker during this remote presentation. The meeting location is Spazio’s restaurant at 12031 Lackland Road. RSVP no later than Monday before the meeting date. The presentation is available via a remote hookup for those who cannot attend.

March 9 — Nashville, Tennessee – The Tennessee IBM Mid-Range User Group meeting will feature a discussion of disaster recovery beyond nightly saves. Guest speaker is IBM midrange veteran Todd Victor. The meeting registration begins at 5:30 p.m. and will be held at Shoney’s restaurant located at 2645 McGavock Pike.

March 14 -16 — Delavan, Wisconsin A one-day Women in IT Seminar will take place in conjunction with the Wisconsin Midrange Computing Professionals Association Spring Technical Conference. The agenda includes sessions on IT careers, mentoring, and the business environment; a keynote address by Stefanie Chiras, vice president of Power Systems offering management; as well as an open discussion.

March 14 -16 — Delavan, Wisconsin – The Wisconsin Midrange Computing Professionals Association Spring Technical Conference is the largest conference in the Midwest. It features more than 50 informative presentations on current topics such as SQL, PHP, RPG, .NET and IBM administration. Keynote presentations by Tim Rowe, IBM i business architect for application development and systems management, and Stefanie Chiras, vice president of Power Systems offering management, are agenda highlights. A full session agenda is available online. In addition to the all-day technical session on Tuesday, there is a one-day event highlighting the opportunities for women in IT. The tech conference includes a vendor expo and is hosted by the LakeLawn Resort.

March 14 — Schaumburg, Illinois – The monthly meeting of the OMNI User Group will feature a simulcast of the roundtable discussion taking place at the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professionals Association. The roundtable participants include Larry Bolhuis, Birgitta Hauser, Robin Tatum, Tim Rowe, Tom McKinley, Robert Andrews, Tommy Atkins, Stephanie Chiras, and moderator Charles Guarino. The OMNI meeting will be held at the IBM offices in Schaumburg.

March 14 — Norwalk, Connecticut – The Fairfield AS/400 Users Group monthly meeting topic is

DB2 for i temporal tables. Guest speaker is DB2 for i Business Architect Scott Forstie. Discussion topics include keeping track of SQL table history and querying the contents of tables at a specific point in time or over a time rang. FASUG meetings are held at the Norwalk Inn, 99 East Avenue, and begin at 5:30 p.m.

March 16 — East Parsippany, New Jersey – At the next meeting of the North Eastern Systems Technology Users group, guest speaker Scott Forstie, DB2 for i business architect, will make two presentations: SQL Views for Dummies and SQL for Security Officers. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. and will be held at the Spice Grill located at 111 Route 46 East.

March 20 — Westbury, New York – The Long Island Systems Users Group monthly meeting will include three presentations by DB2 for i Business Architect Scott Forstie. At 3:30 p.m., Forstie will present SQL Views for Dummies. At 5 p.m. his topic will be SQL for the Security Officer. At 8 p.m., Forstie returns for a session titled ACS Run SQL Scripts and Other DB2 for i Tools Re-Invented. In between the second and third sessions, there will be time for networking, cocktails, and dinner. LISUG meetings are held at the Westbury Manor located at 1100 Jericho Turnpike.

March 21-23 — Orlando, Florida – The RPG & DB2 Summit, hosted by System i Developer partners Susan Gantner, Jon Paris and Paul Tuohy, features three days of training that modernizes and expands IBM i development skills features three days of training that modernizes and expands IBM i development skills. An optional fourth day of hands-on workshops on March 20, provides an intensive dive into a choice of SQL, RSE/RDi, Service Programs or PHP sessions. The conference focuses on helping IBM i developers achieve continuous skills improvement based on current tips and techniques that can be implemented immediately. An early registration rate of $1,295 is available through February 17.

March 21 — Costa Mesa, California – Open source tools for RPG ILE will be highlighted during the feature presentation at the regular monthly meeting of the OCEAN User Group. This presentation by IBM Power Systems Champion Liam Allen will include the use of the Relic Package Manager for contributing to open source RPG projects and the IBMiCmd plug-in for Notepad++. The meeting location is National University located at 3390 Harbor Boulevard.

March 21 — Eden Prairie, Minnesota – Emergency preparedness will be the focus of attention at the monthly meeting of QUSER, the local user group for IBM midrange professionals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The presentation, by subject matter expert Richard Dolewski, will include business continuity management, disaster recovery planning, and a home emergency plan. Actual regional disasters are discussed in this session along with a time-tested approach for helping enterprises stay in business and keeping families safe. The meeting begins at 2 p.m. and will be held at the HelpSystems offices located at 455 City West Parkway.

March 22 — Webinar – Building a responsive UI is not magic nor mystery. This online session “Making Rich Application Interfaces Responsive” provides tips for planning and building responsive applications. During this presentation, Profound Logic’s Brian May demonstrates techniques in the Profound UI Visual Designer and use custom CSS to make applications more responsive. Topics include using containers to organize related groups of data and using CSS Media Queries to control the data layout based on the size of a display. The session begins at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

March 23 — Markham, Ontario, Canada – Jesse Gorzinski, IBM i business architect of open source technologies, will present two sessions at the monthly meeting of the Toronto User Group. Gorzinski’s session, at 5 p.m., will cover the latest updates on the open source offerings, the open source community, and how to participate in open source. Gorzinski’s 7 p.m. session will examine the multiple techniques to integrate Web serving in the open source world. Topics include: IBM i basics related to Web servers, PHP, Node.js, and Python; integrating new IBM i languages into existing Apache web sites; alternatives available in open source; and Web application design techniques for consistent good performance. The meeting takes place at the Savoy Conference Centre (Monte Carlo Inn) located at 7255 Warden Avenue.

March 23 — Manchester, New Hampshire – The New Hampshire Midrange User Group is hosting a one-day technical session on security presented by Robin Tatam, global director of security technologies at HelpSystems. The session agenda includes encryption, security for programmers, IBM i auditing features, and evaluating your own state of security. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. and the first session begins at 9. The event will be held at The Yard Restaurant located at 1211 South Mammouth Road.

April 10-12 — Framingham, Massachusetts – The Northeast IBM i User Group Conference features more than 70 educational sessions in six skills categories. It offers the opportunity to learn about new technologies, engage with vendors to discuss packaged software advancements, hear IBM i executives and lead developers discuss products and roadmaps for the platform, and gain knowledge that can benefit your company and your career. The user groups of the Northeast come from the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

May 2 & 3 — Markham, Ontario, Canada – The Toronto User Group’s annual technical education conference, TEC 2017, features IBM i-centric subjects that include: RPG application development, Web and mobile development, application modernization, accessing and optimizing DB2 data, performance management, and system management. The conference will take place at the SAVOY Conference Centre (Monte Carlo Inn) located at 7255 Warden Avenue in Markham. Early registration discounts are available.

May 7-10 — Orlando, Florida – The 2017 COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition is the largest IBM i educational event of the year. It includes more than 300 sessions related to IBM i, as well as AIX and Linux. Open source, high availability, security, DB2, and application development are a few of the popular skill-building topics. The agenda includes all-day pre-conference workshops, open labs, and a wide variety of lecture-type sessions presented by subject matter experts. An early registration discount ($1,595 for members; $1,895 for non-members) is available through December 30.

May 22-26 — Orlando, Florida – IBM Systems Technical University is a training and skills event featuring Power Systems, z Systems, and storage. Sessions are tailored for executives, business managers, data center managers, tech support managers, project managers, systems and application programmers, IT architects, and systems and database admins. Thirty-nine IBM i-specific session are on the agenda.