• Guru: Refactoring into Routines

  May 7, 2018 Ted Holt

  In RDi and Refactoring, I illustrated the process of refactoring by taking code of a very old style and converting it little by little into something modern. I promised to write more about the subject, and today I fulfill that promise.

  The things I did in that first article — removing indicators, removing the COMP op code, removing GOTO, and renaming variables — are great, but they are not the only refactoring techniques. One of the best ways to refactor is to create new routines or improve existing routines, especially routines that can stand alone.

  To illustrate, I’ll begin …

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• As I See It: The Long And Intertwined Road

  May 7, 2018 Victor Rozek

  I’m part Neanderthal. No, that’s not just my wife’s opinion. Nor is it an unkind conclusion based on observation, although that could be open to debate. In fact, my wife is part Neanderthal, too, a data point that invites further comment but could only get me into trouble.

  The bearer of this startling revelation is an organization long celebrated for its examination of such diverse, yet interconnected subjects as history, culture, science, and the environment. Its playground was, and continues to be, planet Earth. From its early days as a sponsor of exploration; to producing a publication so beloved that, …

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• Spring Cleaning In IBM i Land

  May 7, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It has been a busy couple of weeks with IBM winding down a whole bunch of different products related to the IBM i platform. It is a kind of spring cleaning, we suppose. IBM doesn’t usually offer explanations for its decision to discontinue products, so we just have to take them at face value. Sometimes there are upgraded or replacement products, and sometimes it is just the end of the line.

  In announcement letter 918-056, IBM says that it will be withdrawing the 7042-CR9 Hardware Management Console (HMC), and moreover, IBM says that going forward, support for the Model …

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• Survey Paints a Picture of IBM i Community, Product Usage

  May 2, 2018 Alex Woodie

  The folks behind the All 400s website have published the first results of an online survey that seeks to illuminate the state of the IBM i community, ranging from possible plans to migrate off the platform to third-party product preferences. The first 400 people have taken the 25-question survey, and the results may surprise you.

  About a week ago, John Rockwell, the owner of the All 400s website (www.all400s.com) announced in the LinkedIn group “IBM i, iSeries, and AS/400 Professionals” that the first set of results has been released. The survey, which is hosted by Survey Monkey, …

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• GDPR and IBM i: The Final Countdown

  May 2, 2018 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops have just 24 days until the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect. If you haven’t started your GDPR project yet, it’s likely too late to complete it by May 25. But a good faith start to a GDPR remediation effort could benefit you in the eyes of regulators, should you happen to cross their path. Here’s what IBM i shops need to know as the countdown to GDPR-ageddon continues.

  GDPR is a far-reaching law that governs how companies and other organizations are allowed to collect, process, and store data about European Union citizens, no matter …

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• LaserVault Puts the ‘i’ in VTL

  May 2, 2018 Alex Woodie

  LaserVault is rolling out a new virtual tape library (VTL) offering that could interest IBM i shops who are looking to get away from physical tape. Dubbed ViTL, the offering emulates an IBM LTO tape library, and thanks to integration with BRMS and HelpSystems‘ Robot Save, can provide the “set it and forget it” level of automation that IBM i shops expect from enterprise storage, the company says.

  LaserVault, which is also known as Electronic Storage Corp., is no newbie when it comes to virtualizing tape products. In 2006, the Tulsa, Oklahoma, company debuted LaserVault Backup to provide customers …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, May 2

  May 2, 2018 Dan Burger

  The robots are coming . . . to help? The only thing clear about the future of artificial intelligence is that it is set to play a huge role in how we analyze and use data. How worried or excited we should be about the possibilities is still murky. AI will impact how we work, and possibly if we work, which has caused law makers to start taking a closer look at the potential impact of AI on jobs and the economy. Meanwhile, IBM and others are all in and looking to emerge as leaders with AI in most every …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 20, Number 17

  May 2, 2018 Doug Bidwell

  This week’s PTF Guide brings us a Security Bulletin from IBM. There are multiple vulnerabilities in OpenSSL (5733-SC1) that affect the IBM i. Check this link for details on the recommended PTFs. A list of all PTFs available for OpenSSL can be found here.

  In other news, there is one situation where CPYFRMIMPF fails to convert a .csv file to a database file. You can see the details and the fix here.

  Use our archive of the IBM i PTF Guide below to help you work through the PTFs in chronological order:

  April 28, 2018: Volume 20, Number …

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• Goodbye, Java Enterprise Edition. Hello, Jakarta EE

  April 30, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Developers who use Java Enterprise Edition will be happy to know that the development and runtime platform is gaining new life as Jakarta EE. As part of an agreement with Oracle, the tech giant will give up control over the platform to Eclipse Foundation, which has big plans to remake enterprise Java for the emerging cloud world.

  Since it bought Sun Microsystems back in 2010, Oracle has been fully in charge of Java. That includes defining not just the core Java language, but having a big hand in everything else governed through the Java Community Process (JCP), including the Java …

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• Sundry IBM Announcements For Power Systems

  April 30, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is a quiet time in the Power Systems line, with the “ZZ” entry Power9 machines just announced in February and shipping in March and other machines not expected until the third quarter. But there are always some little things happening here and there, and you keep us around so we catch wind of them and report them to you.

  First up, in announcement letter 118-036, IBM is offering new processor features and memory sticks for the Power H922 and Power H924 systems that are designed primarily to run the SAP HANA in-memory database on Linux atop Power, but …

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