Timothy Prickett Morgan
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Mad Dog 21/21: Qubit’s Rubes
June 6, 2016 Hesh Weiner
… Read moreIn May, IBM said it would give the public a free taste of quantum computing: IBM is providing free access to a five-qubit quantum processor in the cloud, surrounded by support facilities to enable friendly experimentation. The offering has garnered a lot of favorable press coverage. This stunt is reminiscent of the unveiling of Angler, an augmented cell phone first shown at Comdex in 1992 to press acclaim. Two years later, in August 1994, Angler had evolved into an actual IBM product, the Simon Personal Communicator. Six months and 50,000 units later, Simon was gone.
IBM Simon:
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For Sale: IBM i Is A Buyer’s Market
June 6, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThere is an old adage that it is 10 times as expensive to acquire a new customer as it is to keep an existing one happy. I think that whoever lived in those times and coined that phrase did not live in an economic period dominated by the cheap money that was made available–some would say necessary–to keep the global economy humming along or recovering relatively quickly when it falters.
I think it is maybe a hundred or a thousand times easier to buy a company with a set of established customers than it is to acquire them one at
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Global Temporary Tables And Host Variables, Take 2
May 31, 2016 Ted Holt
… Read moreIn Global Temporary Tables and Host Variables, I complained that DECLARE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE does not permit me to use host variables. I presented two ways to circumvent the problem. Today I revisit the topic to show another way that was not available six years ago.
First, create some global variables.
create variable somelib.gv_Company dec(3); create variable somelib.gv_Customer dec(5);
Then use those global variables in your program.
exec sql set gv_Company = :inCompany; exec sql set gv_Customer = :inCustomer; exec sql declare global temporary table Temp1 as (select * from sales where companyno = gv_Company and customerno = gv_Customer) -
Watch Your Data While Stepping Out With RDi Debug
May 31, 2016 Susan Gantner
… Read moreIn this latest in my series of tips on using the RDi debugger, I’ll talk about one of my favorite debug features–the Monitors view–and we’ll explore not just one or two, but four different options for stepping through program code a statement at a time.
Stepping Out
Just like with the green screen debugger, you can step through code a statement at a time. Figure 1 shows the various debug tool bar icons with those related to stepping through your code highlighted. The most commonly used options are the two arrows in the middle: “Step Into (F5)” and “Step Over
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IBM Wheels And Deals To Get IBM i Shops Current
May 23, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWe have been complaining a bit that IBM did not deliver new Power8+ processors and an expected bump in price/performance and lower prices as well to help stimulate the IBM i segment of the Power Systems business. But lo and behold, IBM is finally coming around to the idea that it has to actually do something to entice customers on old releases to move to the latest Power8 iron and to get their licensed program products and operating system on Software Maintenance.
The latest deal, called the IBM i License Transfer Promo, was unveiled at the COMMON conference last week
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RDi Debug Without SEPs
May 17, 2016 Susan Gantner
… Read moreI wrote a tip way back in 2007 about how easy it is to start a debug session using Service Entry Points (SEPs). Back then, the tool was still called WDSC, and at that time I mentioned that there were some occasions when SEPs wouldn’t work. So what can you do if you’re in one of those situations?
You can’t set an SEP on a program whose member type doesn’t end in LE. For example, with RPG or CLP programs. That’s not to say that you can’t debug non-LE programs when using SEPs–you simply can’t use one of those program
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Build SQL to Define Your Existing Files, Take 2
May 17, 2016 Ted Holt
… Read moreConverting physical files to tables is a good thing to do, but if you work in the sorts of shops where I’ve worked, you already have more than you can do and you don’t have time to fix what isn’t broken. However, if I could make it easy for you, maybe you’d find the time to convert physical files where doing so is to most advantageous. Let me show you how easy it can be.
First, you need a place to put the SQL DDL (data definition language) source.
crtpf mylib/sqlsrc
Second, you need an SQL client. I have used
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IBM Finally Gets Power8 Machines On SoftLayer Cloud
May 16, 2016 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreFor a company that is so eager to prove the value of the Power processors at the heart of its Power Systems machines, IBM has sure taken its time getting Power8-based systems onto its SoftLayer public cloud. IBM talked about adding Power iron to SoftLayer’s datacenters in the wake of the acquisition of the hoster and cloud provider back in June 2013, and it had bold plans to double the footprint of that cloud and to make Power iron a peer to Xeon-based systems.
These promised machines are now available, and they are, in an indirect way, a significant thing
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Jazzing Up IBM i In COMMON’s Quarter
May 16, 2016 Alex Woodie and Dan Burger
… Read moreNew Orleans has taken on a decidedly IBM i tint thanks to the start of COMMON‘s Annual Meeting and Expo over the weekend. An estimated 1,100 attendees are in the Big Easy for the four-day show, which began Sunday morning with remarks by COMMON president Kevin Mort, and also featured a glimpse into the future of Power Systems, courtesy of IBM Power Systems executives Steve Sibley and Stephanie Chiras.
The spring COMMON conference is still the biggest IBM i show on earth and provides attendees a chance to beef up their skills, socialize with other IBM i professionals, check
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When You Reach Your Break(ing) Point. . . Or Not
May 10, 2016 Susan Gantner
… Read moreI’m always surprised at how well-attended my RDi debugging presentations are. After all, once you know about service entry points, there’s not a huge amount that’s new and radically different about debugging, even with RDi. Then again, I’m constantly learning new things. Here’s something I learned just last week, in fact.
Let’s assume that you already have a debug session running on the troublesome program and we’ll look at setting and using breakpoints. The most obvious and common way to set one is to position your cursor on the statement where you want it. From there, you can use