• Is It Time To Rename RPG?

  August 24, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Should IBM rename RPG, and if so, what should the new name be? It’s an interesting idea, and one that was recently floated by a member of the IBM i community, who submitted an official request for enhancement (RFE) on the matter. The crux of the argument is that full free-format RPG is such a dramatic departure from fixed-format RPG that it deserves a new name. But will IBM, which owns the language, go along with the change?

  Report Program Generator, or RPG, debuted way back in 1959, at the dawn of the computer age, as a way to replicate …

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• Guru: Scalar Use of LISTAGG

  August 24, 2020 Ted Holt

  The SQL LISTAGG function is as handy as a pocket. Only recently I used it to build a string of comma-separated values (CSV) to populate a drop-down box. It sure beats a cursor and a loop. I’ve noticed in my reading that LISTAGG can be used for both aggregate and scalar purposes under Oracle. Db2 doesn’t support the scalar use, but I found another way to do the same thing.

  To see what I’m talking about, check out example 7 in the article Oracle LISTAGG Function Usage, Tips & Examples, by Ben Brumm. I recommend studying the entire article; …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, August 24

  August 24, 2020 Jenny Thomas

  The response to our current worldwide pandemic has forced a lot of change in our industry. Many of us have had to adapt quickly to working remotely, and we have all gotten better at Zoom calls. But now, as parts of the world ease out of quarantine, some enterprises are finding workers are stressed about making a return to the office. Our top story this week looks at one of the ways IBM is trying to help make the road back as safe – while quelling as much anxiety about going back – as possible. Whatever stage of return your …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 34

  August 24, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  With so many people trying to take staycation – or maybe even an actual vacation – this time of year, in 2020, the year of The Great Infection, it is particularly kind for the PTF action to settle down for the IBM i platform. Whether or not this is intentional on the part of Big Blue, it is appreciated just the same.

  There are a few tweaks here and there for the releases, just the same, and we are always tweaking the IBM i PTF Guide, too, so there are some new things to look at.

  Here’s the PTF …

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• i2Rest Offers Native API Alternative to IWS

  August 19, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that want to expose their RPG applications as industry standard Web services have a few options to choose from. One solution they should keep on their list is i2Rest, which is a native ILE application that exposes RPG using modern OAuth2 and OpenAPI standards.

  We first came across Alexei Baranov’s work back in 2012, when he was involved in the port of the SVN client to IBM i while working at a Moscow, Russia-based consulting firm. Soon thereafter, Baranov started working on developing Web services tools for IBM i.

  The first version of his new Web …

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• New Option Emerges for Refactoring IBM i Apps

  August 19, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that want to refactor their RPG and COBOL applications into different languages have a new option available to them. In late June, Astadia and Blu Age announced they’re working together on a new service that automates the conversion of customers’ older apps into Java and .NET code that can run on X86 systems in your basement or the cloud.

  Based in Boston, Massachusetts, Astadia claims to have completed more than 200 mainframe migrations and more than 100 mainframe modernization projects over about two-and-a-half decades. The company has modernized millions of lines of COBOL code running on mainframes …

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• ARCAD Hooks Cross-Reference Tool into LPEX Editor

  August 19, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers won’t have to leave the comfort of RDi and the LPEX editor to engage in application cross-referencing tasks, thanks to the recent integration between the ARCAD Observer cross-referencing software with LPEX.

  According to ARCAD Software, the new LPEX integration will bring “massive productivity benefits” to IBM i developers in the form of context-sensitive “where used” impact analysis, as well as dependency information, all delivered directly from within the LPEX editor.

  LPEX integration is a new feature delivered in late June in ARCAD Observer version 12.1. The company, which has offices in France, New Hampshire and Chicago …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, August 19

  August 19, 2020 Jenny Thomas

  IT Jungle created Monitor as a place to round up news relevant to our IBM i ecosystem, or that we just think might be of interest to our readers. But as a leader in IBM i news, sometimes our stories are the ones we just don’t think you can miss. This week, two of our articles are featured in the top five. We were simpatico with the hot topics of the week – the launch of Power10 and digital transformation – and you’ll find our coverage of both topics in the top stories below, plus a look at what’s happening …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 22, Number 33

  August 19, 2020 Doug Bidwell

  It’s August so that means it’s HIPERS season for the IBM i PTF guide. You will find HIPERS in the guide for the following PTF Groups: PTF Groups 7.4, PTF Groups 7.3, PTF Groups 7.2, and PTF Groups 7.1. Other than that, there’s not much else to report. We have no new or update links to report, and no new defectives this week (08/15/20).

  We do have a tip: When visiting the doctor for a routine checkup, take a phone charger and an overnight bag, just in case. When you walk in the door and your temperature shows high, you …

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• Power To The Tenth Power

  August 17, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  This is one of my favorite times of the year, with the Hot Chips symposium usually underway this week at Stanford University and all the vendors big and small trotting out their, well, hottest chippery. In this case, hot means “extremely interesting” but it often means “burning shedloads of watts” as well. But this is the time that the chip architects show off what they have been working on for four or five years and what has already been in production in recent months or will be in the coming months.

  IBM tends to jump the gun a bit …

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