I have a problem that I solved with a simple RPG program, but I know it can be done with SQL as well. I needed to generate a simple table of employee ID, name, and average of the last five weeks paychecks. Is this simple or complicated to do with SQL?

–Barry

You are correct that SQL can do the calculation, Barry. However, you’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s simple or complicated.

First, let’s get some data to work with. I’m going to simplify your question slightly by using a name only, without an ID, to identify an

Jerry Clower used to tell a story about attending a rattlesnake roundup. He said that people from the humane society were on hand to be sure that the rattlesnakes were killed properly. Mr. Clower remarked that he didn’t know that there was an improper way to kill a rattlesnake. Pointers can be like rattlesnakes, biting you when you don’t expect it. Do you know the proper way to kill a pointer?

Use the %ALLOC function to allocate memory to a program. The system copies the address of the memory into a pointer variable.

D SomePointer     s
D SomeData        s            256a   

In the past six months, I’ve had three occasions where two of the six IBM i partitions I manage have needed emergency IPLs to restart their systems. This is unusual for an IBM i installation and it got me thinking what could have been done to avoid the issue and how I could have reacted better after the issue occurred. This article summarizes what I’ve learned from these experiences.

This Ain’t Windows, You Know

These emergency situations occurred on a Power 720 i 6.1 partition (one emergency) and a Power 6 550 partition (two emergencies). While it’s not as unusual