Four Hundred Monitor, February 7
February 7, 2018 Dan Burger
Feedback on something you have written and published can warm your heart or give you heartburn. When his blog sparks some discussion among readers, Steve Will welcomes the dialog. Probably not 100 percent of the time, but let’s say more often than not. On this occasion, the topics are RPG and modernization. The discussion is still open. This would be a good time to makes some points of your own.
Peek inside Monitor to pick up advice on cross-generational hiring and finding RPG programmers, tips on second and third programming languages to put in your skills toolbox, and warning signs for IT disaster.
Top Stories From Outside The Jungle
(You and i) Wanted: Stimulating conversations open for more participation. Are you game? Feel free to jump into these conversations with IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will: Is RPG strategic? What’s the definition of modern RPG? Stay on point and become part of the feedback.
(Talsco Weekly) Generational differences create unique challenges for attracting and hiring talent. Organizations with cross-generational hiring strategies will find it easier to attract and hire talent. And if you haven’t done so already, it’s time to rethink RPG the critical role of RPG in attracting and retaining talent.
(InformationWeek) Software developers face a rapidly changing landscape. Platforms and business needs are evolving while programming languages are either gaining or falling in popularity. Developers looking to keep their careers on track should acquire new skills, become fluent in multiple languages, brush up abilities in areas they’ve long neglected, and reluctantly bid farewell to favorite tools that are rapidly losing their luster.
(CIO) There may be something rotten in your IT department, and if you don’t deal with it soon you could have a disaster on your hands. Things may look fine now. But the warning signs are already there; you just haven’t noticed them yet: code releases followed by a blizzard of bug fixes; shadow IT becoming more prominent; and finding that you are the last one to hear about changes in business strategy.
Redbooks, White Papers, and Other Resources
(HelpSystems) The annual IBM i Marketplace Survey is one of the most cited references for data about the IBM i installed base. It measures Power System hardware releases, operating system releases, user concerns, development preferences, and many additional metrics. The 2018 report features data collected in late 2017.
(Rocket Software) “9 Ways to API-Enable Host-Based Enterprise Apps” is an E-book that describes building application programming interfaces (APIs) that provide real-time access to enterprise app functionality without invasive and potentially risky changes to the code.
(IBM) Full IBM support for i 7.1 will cease in April. Will you be upgrading to 7.2 or 7.3? Read the official 7.1 withdrawal announcement from IBM and check out the information on OS upgrades that is available here.
(Seiden Group) The Git trend makes perfect sense as IBM i teams adopt languages such as PHP, JavaScript, and Python to develop Web user interfaces, APIs, and other functionality. That said, Git also supports the traditional IBM i language, RPG.
(Profound Logic) This survey of the IBM i community is focused on modernization projects completed and projected. Among its findings are that more businesses have upgraded to the latest versions of IBM i and RPG compared to last year and that companies remaining on the platform are embracing options to optimize IBM i for their modern enterprise. There’s plenty here to discover and discuss.
(CEF) The COMMON Education Foundation (CEF) has added a new video library containing live-session recordings from COMMON Conferences and webcasts. Business development and technical development topics, presented by respected authorities, are included in the new library, which is available 24×7.
Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings
February 8 — Milwaukee, Wisconsin – The Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association meeting will include two presentations. The first session will explain using RPG Open Access to seamlessly transition from OPNQRYF-based file processing to SQL cursor. The second sessions will be IBM i performance tuning. The meeting begins at 4:30 p.m. and will be held at Alioto’s located at 3041 North Mayfair Road.
February 8 — Nashville, Tennessee – This meeting of the Tennessee IBM Mid-Range User Group will feature two presentations by application development expert Dan Magid. His first session will focus on Node JS and Angular Application on IBM i. The second session examines the RPG development transition from waterfall to agile development. The meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m., will be held at the Shoney’s restaurant located at 2645 McGavock Pike.
February 14 — Webinar – Whether you have green screens or a drab GUI, outdated apps can benefit from modern source code, modern GUIs, and modern tools. In this session, Profound Logic’s Alex Roytman and Liam Allan demonstrate how free-format RPG and Node.js can be used to modernize legacy RPG code, create modern application interfaces, and extend RPG applications to include Web Services and NPM packages. The presentation begins at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
February 20 — Costa Mesa, California – JavaScript, HTML and CSS, building blocks of Web and mobile design, will be the featured topics at the monthly meeting of the OCEAN User Group. Patrick Behr–a professional programmer, analyst, designer and integrator of new applications featuring modern RPG, SQL and database design—will be the guest speaker. Dinner and networking begins at 6 p.m. with the presentation at 7. The meeting location is National University located at 3390 Harbor Boulevard.
February 20 — Coppell, Texas – RPG editors other than SEU and RDi will be on the agenda during the monthly meeting of the Metro Midrange Systems Association, a user group for the Dallas and Fort Worth metro areas. Guest speaker Aaron Bartell, one of the top guns in IBM i open source technologies, will be presenting the information. The event begins at 6 p.m. MMSA meetings are held at the IBM Global Solution Center located at 1177 South Belt Line Road.
February 20 — Eden Prairie, Minnesota – IBM i business continuity expert Debbie Saugen will explain the latest hardware and OS updates that help meet recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives during the monthly meeting of QUSER, the local user group for IBM midrange professionals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. The presentation begins at 2 p.m.The meeting begins social time at 1:30 p.m. at the HelpSystems offices located at 6455 City West Parkway.
February 21 — Westbury, New York – The Long Island Systems Users Group monthly meeting will include two presentations by Architect for Open Source and Java on IBM i Jesse Gorzinski. At 5 p.m., Gorzinski will discuss open source utilities supported by IBM i. At 7 p.m., he will explain the integration opportunities between IBM i and Watson. In between the sessions is time for networking, cocktails, and dinner. LISUG meetings are held at the Westbury Manor located at 1100 Jericho Turnpike.
February 22 — Parsippany, New Jersey – Guest speaker Jesse Gorzinski, architect for open source and Java on IBM i will discuss open source tools at the meeting of the Northeastern Systems Technology Users group. Topics will include various ways to edit open source code on IBM i, accessing and using shells, and how to be a productive open source user and developer. The event begins at 5 p.m. and will be held at the Spice Grill located at 111 US-46.
February 22 — Webinar – “Building and Sharing RDi Templates to Improve Developer Productivity” is an online session that’s free to COMMON members and $99 for non-members. The session focus is on improving productivity by reusing code created by others. Using Rational Developer for i to create templates and snippets and share them with other developers will be discussed. The presenter is Ray Everhart of Fresche Solutions. His presentation begins at noon Central Time. Non-member register procedure begins with the link to “Create a new account” on the registration page.
March 13 -15 — 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. The tech conference includes a vendor expo and is hosted by the Lake Lawn Resort.
March 19-22 — Las Vegas, Nevada – Think 2018 is a new IBM conference that highlights topics such as IT transitions to the cloud, data and analytics, application development, IBM research, the Internet of Things, IT infrastructure, mobile, security, collaboration, and Watson. Programs available for C-level executives, IT managers, developers, and academics.
March 20-22 — Dallas, Texas – The twice-a-year, spring and fall, RPG & DB2 Summit returns to the Southwest for its next technical conference with an agenda of in-depth sessions that covers new and traditional topics. In addition to the three-day Summit, an optional fourth day of hands-on workshops provide intensive education into popular IBM i development technologies.
April 23-25 — Framingham, Massachusetts – The Northeast IBM i User Group Conference features more than 70 educational sessions in seven 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 that combine to organize this conference come from the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
May 20-23 — San Antonio, Texas – PowerUp 18 (formerly the 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. Pre-conference workshops (May 19) are also planned. An early registration discount that saves $200 on the registration is available through April 27.
