It’s widely accepted throughout the world of programming that indenting source code to show logical structure makes source code easier to read. Program Indentation and Comprehensibility, a study by Richard Miara, Joyce Musselman, Juan Navarro, and Ben Shneiderman, supports this position. Miara, et al, determined that using a two- to four-space indentation scheme improves comprehension by 20 percent to 30 percent. (That’s for humans, of course. The compiler protested that indentation was of no benefit.) Indenting source code is sometimes a nuisance, but it happens that WebSphere Development Studio client (WDSc) can help you indent source code, and can

I am using the MAX function in a SQL statement to get the maximum value from a few columns. I don’t know which element is producing the maximum value. Is there a way to identify the element that has the maximum value?

–Hisham

Yes, Hisham. Thanks for allowing me another opportunity to show off that most versatile of SQL features: CASE.

For the benefit of the readers, here’s the SQL statement Hisham sent to me.

SELECT max(WK01, WK02, WK03, WK04) FROM SALES

Here’s the sort of results his SQL query generates.

 
MAX 
===
100 
120 
150

He has the maximum

A chronic System i security problem is that without proper system configuration, users can create easy-to-guess and easy-to-hack passwords when they use the PC5250 Change iSeries Password function, the Change Password command (CHGPWD), or the Change User Profile command (CRTUSRPRF) to change their passwords. This week, I’ll look at some simple system configurations you can perform to ensure that user-created passwords are always sufficiently complex for system security.

What I Mean By Easily Guessed Passwords

Easily guessed passwords include any user password that a middle school student could reasonably guess if they just have a little information about the person