• Guru Classic: My Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts for RSE/RDi

  July 17, 2019 Susan Gantner

  When using RDi for editing my CL, DDS, RPG, or COBOL code, I find that I can save a lot of time by using keyboard shortcuts for functions that would otherwise require that I take my hands off the keyboard to use the mouse. So I thought I would share a few of my favorites. Many of the shortcuts I use are standard for other applications that I also use for email, spreadsheets or text editing. It’s easy to forget that some of those same shortcuts can be used when we’re editing our RPG code.

  A lot has changed on …

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• Guru Classic: The New Basics — Indicators

  July 17, 2019 Jon Paris

  The history of indicators pre-dates even the earliest versions of RPG and takes us all the way back to the old tabulating machines, perhaps even earlier depending on how broad a definition one uses. What is without doubt, though, is that indicators in the sense of *INnn and *INLR were added to the RPG language as a vehicle for translating those old tabulator board programs.

  RPG has grown a lot since those early days, and yet many people still write code using the old-style numbered indicators. LR? Well, we’re kind of stuck with that, but there hasn’t been a need …

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• Guru Classic: Looking For Commitment, Part 2

  July 17, 2019 Paul Tuohy

  As companies look to modernize their applications, commitment control can play an integral role. This set of three articles was originally published in March 2009. The content of the articles has been updated for free form RPG.

  In this article I will take a look at the basic rules and coding requirements for using commitment control within RPG programs.

  A Database

  This is the SQL used to create a schema named COMMIT, which contains two related tables called HEADER and DETAILS.

  (A)  CREATE SCHEMA "COMMIT" ;
  
  (B)  CREATE TABLE COMMIT/HEADER (
       	"KEY" CHAR(2) CCSID 37 NOT NULL DEFAULT '' ,
       	

  …

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• IBM Takes A Hands Off Approach With Red Hat

  July 15, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM has been around long enough in the IT racket that it doesn’t have any trouble maintaining distinct portfolios of products that have overlapping and often incompatible functions. The System/3, which debuted in 1969, is only five years younger than the System/360, which laid the foundation and set the pace for corporate computing when it launched in 1964. Both styles of machines continue to exist today as the IBM i on Power Systems platform and the System z.

  With the $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, which closed last week, neither of those two legacy products are under threat and …

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• Remain Breaks New Ground With ALM Suite

  July 15, 2019 Alex Woodie

  Coding season just ended for Remain Software, the Dutch application lifecycle management (ALM) vendor with a growing US presence. That means customers are sorting through a torrent of new functionality in its flagship TD/OMS product, including improved hooks to DevOps tools like Git and Jenkins, a new cross-platform cross-reference module, and a nifty API generator too.

  New stuff started emerging from Remain Software around the POWERUp conference in May, when IT Jungle sat down with company representatives to talk about development trends, current and upcoming releases of Remain’s software, and what customers are looking to get next.

  Arguably the biggest …

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• Guru: Finding Large Files With Python

  July 15, 2019 Mike Larsen

  It’s always a good idea to purge files that aren’t needed any longer. Chances are that you already have procedures in place to purge data from Db2 files and tables, but what about files that reside in the IFS? Do you have a good solution for keeping the IFS clean?

  Perhaps you have old order files stored in the IFS. If you work for a large company, these types of files can accumulate quickly. I’ve written processes in the past to remove files from the IFS using RPG, but I’d like to offer an alternative. I’m going to show how …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, July 15

  July 15, 2019 Jenny Thomas

  The IBM i is in a constant battle to defend itself from being regarded as a legacy platform. Still, worries about its future persist and companies continue to look for the latest slick technology to propel them into the future. But a new report from Gartner warns that jumping platforms not only might not be a viable solution, it could leave your organization in a worse situation than where you started. You can get a closer look at and some takeaways from the Gartner report via the Seiden Group at the first link below. Isn’t it about time that we …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 21, Number 28

  July 15, 2019 Doug Bidwell

  A reminder once again: Don’t forget the annual OCEAN technical conference. This is just a reminder that if you are in our neck of the woods in southern California that the OCEAN TechCon19 IBM i Technical Conference – check out CODE LEARN20 – runs from July 25 through 27.

  In this week’s IBM i PTF Guide, there are updates to Backup Recovery Solutions for IBM i 7.2 and IBM i 7.3. Also, IBM’s Pre-Upgrade Validation Tool now supports V7R4! See new link in “Links” section of the Guide.

  New (Updated) Links this week:

  • System: Machine Ineligible Condition
  • ACS:

  …

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• Eradani Bridges The Gap Between Legacy And Open Source

  July 8, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In this publication, legacy is not a dirty word or even remotely pejorative. Rather, “legacy” is just a shorthand way of delineating between applications that encapsulate decades of the evolution of a business and the transactions it processes, and all of the other new stuff that this business is also doing and perhaps coding with newer tools and programming languages.

  A new company, called Eradani, has been founded by some experts in both the IBM i world and the open source world with the express purpose of building a technical bridge so these two different cultures can see a …

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• Skytap Bullish On Its Hourly Billing In New IBM i Cloud

  July 8, 2019 Alex Woodie

  After a successful tech preview, Skytap last month announced that its public cloud for IBM i is now open for business. Customers can rent time on Skytap’s IBM i cloud, starting at $200 per month per vCPU or $.50 per hour per vCPU. While the monthly option will work well for production workloads, it’s the hourly billing option that’s turning heads, especially among IBM i developers looking to adopt agile and DevOps practices.

  Skytap isn’t the only cloud option for IBM i customers. There are numerous private cloud offerings launched over the past few years, largely as IBM business partners, …

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