Four Hundred Monitor, July 12
July 12, 2023 Jenny Thomas
Summer is in full swing in the states, but that hasn’t stopped us from keeping up with all there is to know in the IBM i ecosystem. This week, we’re helping you catch up on some general IBM and computing news, and we’re anticipating some slicing and dicing of the numbers that will come out from IBM’s Q2 on July 19. Watch for the coverage from our very own Timothy Prickett Morgan in an upcoming issue of The Four Hundred. This is also a good time to look through the Calendar below and plug some dates for learning into your calendar to help you make time for keeping your skills up.
Top Stories From Around The Jungle
(Forbes) Q2 financial results are just around the corner for IBM.
(The Seattle Times) Big Blue is very interested in seeing this Japanese chipmaker succeed.
(Live Science) IBM believes quantum computing will be the standard within two years.
(Channel Daily News) Meet IBM’s channel chief and read what she thinks about GenAI.
(Business Chief) IBM has been asking global CEOs about their priorities for the remainder of 2023.
Redbooks, White Papers, Blogs, Podcasts, and Other Resources
(Rocket Software) Chris Wey, president of data modernization at Rocket, chats about the power of data intelligence.
(Seiden Group) The latest blog from Alan Seiden explains how to report an issue with VS Code for IBM i.
(Cybra) The blog looks at the difference between 1D and 2D barcodes.
(System i Developer) Our friends at SiD have revealed the next series of Summit Deep Dive Workshops for IBM i developers. Choose from 13 interactive, half-day online workshops with Paul Tuohy, Susan Gantner, Jon Paris, or Mike Pavlak. Cement new skills in SQL, RPG, open source on IBM i, APIs/web services, Db2 for i and more. The Series begins September 19 and runs through October 31.
(Manta Technologies) Another milestone for Manta, which is celebrating its 29th birthday. But you get the present. Save 20 percent on any course, series, or combination pack. Sale ends July 31.
Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings
July 11 – Webinar – The Central Texas IBM i User Group (CTXiUG) welcome Vern Hamberg to its meeting. Vern will be talking about machine instructions and how they can be used in your RPG programs. Meeting is online and free.
July 18 – Online Workshop – RPG Free Form in a Nutshell. In this free online session, Susan Gantner will explain the syntax of RPG Free-Form code. After a brief refresher on free format logic, she will delve into more recent free-form declarations (i.e. the replacements for H, F, D and P specs) as well as the ability to use as many columns for your RPG logic as you need—starting in column 1 if you want!
September 19 – Online Workshop – Getting to a Modern Database on IBM i, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, covers the design and definition of a modern database and the steps necessary to re-define an existing database with DDL — without having to make any program changes.
September 19 – Online Meeting – QUSER welcomes Simon Hutchinson to their September online meeting. He will be making two presentations: Temporal Tables and Tricks with Spool files.
September 21 – Online Workshop – RDi Quick Start for PDM Fans, a half day online workshop with Susan Gantner, helps you get started (or re-started) quickly using RDi’s new PDM perspective. This simplified interface includes a table that allows you to “work with members” (or objects or libraries) in a form that looks and feels much like PDM — but with many cool added features.
September 26 – Online Workshop – Data Structures & Arrays for Today’s RPG Apps, a half day online workshop with Jon Paris, covers Nested Data Structures, Multi-Dimensional Arrays, Dynamic Arrays, Templates, Modern Indicator usage, Data Structure I/O, and more.
September 28 – Online Workshop – Intro to Open Source on IBM i, a half day online workshop with Mike Pavlak, introduces you to the fundamentals of using Open Source Software on IBM i. Mike will cover concepts and terminology, how to install and manage open source tools, and survey several open source projects and languages.
October 3 – Online Workshop – Foundations in SQL on IBM i, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, covers SQL terminology and concepts, including basic syntax for Data Manipulation Language (DML) and Data Definition Language (DDL), as well as the many SQL functions and compare/contrast some of them with RPG built-in functions. We’ll look at accessing data from multiple tables using JOIN and UNION. We’ll look at the use of subselect (a SELECT within a SELECT) and the use of Common Table Expressions (CTE) to accomplish more complex data access.
October 5 – Online Workshop – RPG Procedures & SRVPGMs by Example, a half day online workshop with Susan Gantner, covers how and why to use ILE procedures, modules, service programs, binding directories, binder language, and activation groups.
October 10 – Online Workshop – Python for RPGers, a half day online workshop with Mike Pavlak, explores the implementation, syntax and application use cases of Python on IBM i.
October 9-11 – Virginia Beach, Virginia – Join COMMON for NAViGATE, which will feature more than 100 sessions presented by industry expert speakers, an expo of leading solution providers in the IBM i space, and limitless networking opportunities to connect with peers and experts to maximize your learning opportunities.
October 12 – Online Workshop – API Enable Your Application with Web Services, a half day online workshop with Jon Paris and Paul Tuohy, takes you step by step through the basics of creating and consuming web services using either RPG or SQL along with JSON or XML and HTTPAPI or IWS. Learn which approach is right for you.
October 17 – Online Workshop – A to Z of Embedded SQL in RPG, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, takes you from the basics of a simple SELECT statement, to using a cursor, to using a paging cursor, to using SQL to maintain your data, to wrapping SQL functions as RPG subprocedures, to accessing the web with SQL, to the proper use of dynamic SQL… and much, much more.
October 19 – Online Workshop – Is Code for IBM i Right for You?, a half day online workshop with Susan Gantner and Jon Paris, introduces you to Code for IBM i, an open source extension to Microsoft’s Visual Code Studio. This new IDE supports developers working on IBM i applications that use languages like RPG, COBOL and CL as well as PHP, Node.js, Python and other open source languages.
October 24 – Online Workshop – PHP for RPGers, a half day online workshop with Mike Pavlak, focuses on the fundamentals of PHP. It moves on to exhibit a simple use case for an application and then decompose the application with a LOT of nifty tools and features.
October 26 – Online Workshop – Coding a Modern RPG Application, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, takes you through the structure and code behind a modern RPG application, exploring the details of each of its many layers.
October 31 – Online Workshop – SQL Procedures, Functions and Triggers, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, shows you how to use SQL to allow other languages (and platforms) to take advantage of existing IBM i code or to access SQL capabilities from RPG or COBOL applications.
