Groovy: A Powerful Scripting Language for Java Developers on System i
by Mike Brown

When programmers are put in a situation to develop and deploy applications for a new environment, they tend to look for familiar tools to use. An example might be a text editor that is similar to something that has been used in the past. Another example might be the command line environment (sometimes referred to as a "shell") such as Bash in the Unix/Linux world. IBM provides QShell on the System i as a basic command line environment. However, if you are accustomed to the Unix/Linux world, a lot of utilities that you may be used to may be missing. READ MORE >

Old Programs Can Learn to Behave Themselves
by Ted Holt

As far as I know, nothing disastrous has ever come of a truncation error in one of my programs. Nevertheless, I'm embarrassed when someone points out that a total figure does not equal the sum of the column of numbers above it. RPG's EVAL opcode generates a hard error if high-order numeric truncation occurs. We can use the MONITOR opcode to trap EVAL's truncation errors. But what about all those programs that use antique op codes like ADD, SUB, MULT, and DIV? READ MORE >