• 2021 Predictions for IBM i, Part 1

  January 13, 2021 Alex Woodie

  With an eventful 2020 thankfully in the rearview mirror, it’s time to start thinking about what 2021 might have in store for us. The IBM i community, like most of the world, could use a little bit of hope at the moment. We asked IBM i community leaders to deliver predictions, and they responded.

  Liam Allan, who is a consultant at Seiden Group and the creator of ILE Editor, has a couple of predictions for IT Jungle.

  “My focus is mainly software. I do still predict Node.js gaining traction on IBM i,” Allan writes. “The tooling is really …

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• West Four Stands Out With On Demand Color Label Printing

  January 13, 2021 Phil Andrianos

  West Four Group is a family owned, multi-industry business hailing from the northern reaches of Canada. Focused on a number of industries including door manufacturing, building security supplies, and even creative services, West Four serves hundreds of customers across Western Canada.

  With offices in Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Regina, West Four’s properties include four diverse brands. Madero Distribution is a manufacturer of residential and commercial doors and hardware. Penner Doors and Hardware provides customers with a full line of architectural hardware, doors, frames and building specialties, to general contractors and institutional projects. Security Building Supplies has been supplying lumber and …

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• HelpSystems Acquires Data Security, File Transfer Companies

  January 13, 2021 Alex Woodie

  HelpSystems started 2021 just like it ended 2020: by acquiring a software company.

  Two days before Christmas, HelpSystems acquired Vera, a developer of digital rights management software that is based in Palo Alto, California. Then on January 4, it struck again, acquiring FileCatalyst, an Ottawa, Ontario provider of software for accelerating file transfers.

  Both acquisitions fit neatly into HelpSystems’ existing strategy for helping its customers securely and efficiently move and manage data, as well as with other recent acquisitions that the company has made, says Jim Cassens, HelpSystems president.

  The FileCatalyst software is used to accelerate the transfer …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, January 13

  January 13, 2021 Jenny Thomas

  Despite the fact that much of the world is still shuttered as we desperately look forward to a time beyond the pandemic, we must forge ahead with our initiatives and projects in the new year. But where should you concentrate your focus to succeed in 2021? We don’t have a crystal ball, but we do have Alex Woodie, who talked with leaders in the IBM i community to get their predictions of what the trends will be in the coming months. One thing it’s probably safe to predict is anything “virtual” is going to be a hot topic, as we …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 2

  January 13, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  It was a pretty quiet week on the PTF front, which is pretty much expected from the IBM i community about this time of the year. Still, there were some tweaks here and there that you need to have on your radar.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • High Availability for IBM i
  • IBM HTTP Server for i

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • High Availability for IBM i
  • IBM HTTP Server for i

  PTF Groups 7.2:

  • High Availability for IBM i
  • IBM HTTP Server for i

  PTF Groups 7.1:

  • Not much happening here.

  …

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• Seiden Group Unveils A PHP Distro For IBM i

  January 11, 2021 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are looking for PHP alternatives on IBM i may be interested to know that Seiden Group is now distributing and supporting its own PHP distribution. Called CommunityPlus+, the PHP runtime is distributed via RPM, includes a slew of components (including Db2 database connectors), and is available with technical support, if desired.

  Seiden Group’s free CommunityPlus+ distribution is a PHP runtime for software written in PHP versions 7.3 and 7.4, with support for PHP 8.0 coming soon. The software runs in the IBM i PASE environment in 64-bit mode, and includes a slew of database drivers, …

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• Thoroughly Modern: DevOps Refactoring Of RPG Applications with RDi

  January 11, 2021 Ray Everhart

  Regardless of your current situation – namely, the size and age of your codebase – there is great value to be gained from refactoring. In this article, I will explain what refactoring is, provide the business justification, and describe some refactoring best practices.

  So what is refactoring? In the strictest sense of the word, refactoring is when you improve the quality of code without changing what it does. Refactoring is not about enhancements or bug fixes, but code quality and making the code more efficient and maintainable. Code refactoring also improves readability, which makes QA and debugging go much more …

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• Guru: Fall Brings New RPG Features, Part 2

  January 11, 2021 Jon Paris

  In my previous tip I outlined some of the new features added to RPG with the Fall 2020 release. In this and the following tip I will be covering the features that I ran out of space for in that first one.

  This time I will cover the new FOR-EACH loop construct. I have wanted this in RPG ever since encountering it in PHP. Simply put, it automatically iterates through an array, “serving up” one element at a time. When I say “an array” I mean any kind of array, including data structure arrays, dynamic arrays and even the new …

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• More Vintage Power Systems Feature Withdrawals

  January 11, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In with the new and out with the old is a common theme around this time of the year. It may not be officially spring yet – in fact, we are 71 days away from the vernal equinox here in the northern hemisphere – but Spring Cleaning can and does happen at any time in the IBM product catalog.

  And so it was as 2020 was coming to an end and after we had out the last issue of The Four Hundred for last year to bed.

  In announcement letter 920-167, IBM is withdrawing a number of different features …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 1

  January 11, 2021 Doug Bidwell

  This is the first IBM i PTF Guide of 2021, so we wish everyone a Happy New Year and we are declaring here and now that 2021 will be a better year than 2020, and as it is written, so let it be done.

  Here is the rundown of PTF Groups by IBM i release level:

  PTF Groups 7.4:

  • TCP/IP

  PTF Groups 7.3:

  • TCP/IP

  PTF Groups 7.2:

  • TCP/IP

  PTF Groups 7.1:

  • Nothing, as is usually the case unless something really funky is going on. And considering that Big Blue is now supporting IBM i 7.1 on logical partitions on Power9

  …

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