In my two previous tips, I discussed the alternative PUBLIC authority technique and the re-adopted authority utility implemented via a Submit Job (SBMJOB) command exit point. Using these two ideas together provides an environment where everyone can continue to work normally while, at the same time, providing an environment where you can identify special cases requiring additional changes and can test all of your changes without affecting normal production usage.

Let’s see how this works. If you recall, alternative PUBLIC authority involves setting up a group profile; we’ll call it ALTPUBLIC. After adding all of the production users (or all

Even though assumptions have no place in proper programming, programmers sometimes infuse their code with assumptions. Such practice brings to mind something I once read: If builders built houses the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization. I’ve written about the problem of assumptions before. Today is a good day to revisit the subject.

Programmers who cut their teeth on native I/O (as did I) often depend on the system to alert them when something goes wrong. That is, they assume an I/O operation completed normally unless they hear differently. The bad way to

About the time your System i machine turns three years old, you might start thinking about more than a system upgrade. You may have to determine how to extend your hardware and software maintenance beyond IBM‘s standard maintenance period of three years, i.e., extending your maintenance contract. This week, let’s look at the pitfalls of extending hardware and software maintenance.

The Need

There are several reasons you may need to extend iSeries, System i, and Power i hardware and software maintenance past its initial three-year maintenance period:

• If you leased your machine for more than three years and your