• Momentum Builds For Code For IBM i

  November 7, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Energy and excitement are building in the IBM i development community thanks to Code for IBM i, the VS Code extension that enables users to write and edit RPG and COBOL code in a Web browser. Spearheaded by Liam Allan, who now works for IBM, the lightweight alternative to RDi is approaching critical mass among IBM i developers desperate for something new.

  For many years, IBM i shops had few options available to them when it comes to developing ILE applications for IBM i. IBM’s default recommendation was Rational Developer for i, the Java-based integrated development environment (IDE) that …

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• If You Aren’t Automating Testing, You Aren’t Doing DevSecOps

  October 17, 2022 Andrew Clark

  If you are going to automate application development and operations like a hyperscaler, it is not as simple as moving code to a Git repository and then you are done. Security is critical to DevOps – so much that people are now calling it DevSecOps to highlight that fact. The “Sec” in DevSecOps impacts several phases in the development lifecycle – from code quality and security checking to developer-side unit tests and, further downstream, functional regression tests. Provided they are automated, each technique brings major savings in development by “shifting defects left.” In this article, we’ll explore how.

  Today, …

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• The Lucky Seven Tips Of IBM i DevSecOps

  September 14, 2022 Olenka Van Schendel

  The number seven has been a symbol of luck and fortune and design in many ancient cultures around the world, and so it is with the IBM i world. As it turns out, we think there are a “Lucky Seven” key tips for optimizing your own DevOps implementation, allowing you to leverage your IBM i platform for competitive advantage. And we want to share them with you.

  The programmers who create applications for the IBM i platform and its decades of predecessors were given a set of development tools from IBM with augmentation from third parties such as ARCAD Software, …

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• More IBM i Merlin Details Emerge at POWERUp

  June 1, 2022 Alex Woodie

  We are getting a more complete picture of IBM i Merlin, the DevOps offering that IBM introduced last month with the launch of IBM i 7.5. Among the most interesting revelations at COMMON’s annual POWERUp conference last week is that Merlin will be a vehicle for delivering a range of functionality to the platform in the future, not necessarily limited to app dev.

  IBM i Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration, or Merlin, is a new offering from IBM. The software, as it exists in its first incarnation, enables users to develop IBM i application in ILE languages through an …

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• COMMON Set for First Annual Conference in Three Years

  May 18, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Don’t look now, but COMMON is about to hold its first annual conference in three years. Starting on Monday in New Orleans, POWERUp 2022 will be the biggest gathering of the IBM i community since the pandemic started more than two years ago. There is still time to register for the conference, which will feature a raft of presentations on the newly released IBM i version 7.5.

  COMMON’s annual conference scheduled for the New Orleans Marriott next week is shaping up to be a good one. More than 100 speakers are scheduled to present more than 300 sessions on …

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• IBM i Community Reacts to IBM i 7.5

  May 11, 2022 Alex Woodie

  With the first new version of IBM i in over three years, IBM has certainly captured the attention of the IBM i community. But what do users think of the new release? What’s catching their eyes? We queried a few members of the community to find out.

  IBM Merlin, a new licensed product that stands for Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration, appeared to capture the bulk of the initial attention around the launch of IBM i 7.5.

  Consisting of VS Code IDE, DevOps and CI/CD software from Git and Jenkins, and IBM i-native tools from ARCAD Software — all …

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• Announcement Day: IBM Lifts The Veil On IBM i 7.5 And 7.4 TR6

  May 3, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Big Blue today announced IBM i version 7.5, the first new version of the operating system in three years. Among the big new features with this release are enhancements to Db2 Mirror, better security configurations, and new database features. A new modernization framework called Merlin and a new IBM i subscription option were also unveiled by IBM, which also announced IBM i 7.4 Technology Release 6.

  One of the big headlines with the IBM i 7.5 announcement is Merlin, which IBM says stands for the Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration. Merlin provides a lightweight, browser-based development environment for creating new …

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• Git Is A Whole Lot More Than A Code Repository

  March 16, 2022 Jeff Tickner

  It is funny to think that two of the most transformative technologies to hit the datacenter in the past several decades are based on projects created by Linus Torvalds. The first, of course, is the Linux kernel, which is the heart of the Linux operating system and which first rolled out in 1991 but didn’t become a real server-class platform until the Dot Com Boom in the late 1990s. The second thing that Torvalds created, out of necessity to help better manage the development and patching of the open source Linux kernel, was the Git repository and version control system. …

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• Learning To Drive Fast On The DevOps Roadmap

  January 31, 2022 Andrew Ireland

  Maturity doesn’t come with the passing of time, but with experience, whatever age you may start doing something. So it is with DevOps. In many ways IBM i teams have been ‘ahead of their time’, deploying small code increments to production fast and often.  However we are seeing that requirements in integration and hybrid cloud are pushing the boundaries in DevOps transformation, and that to avoid costly, high-risk migration projects in the future it is important to act now and start taking further steps on that IBM i DevOps maturity journey.

  Full DevOps maturity depends on sharing development methods and …

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• Expanding Fields Is A Bigger Pain In The Neck Than You Think

  October 20, 2021 Andrew Ireland

  Remember the Y2K problem, when companies had two-digit dates for years in their applications and the millennial turn was coming and they suddenly needed a four-digit date so all the math would work out right comparing the present, future, and past? Well, every time you need to change a field length in your source code – which almost always means making it bigger, not shorter – you have to suffer through a mini Y2K crisis.

  Yes, the Y2K crisis did not bring an end to civilization as we knew it, as some were prognosticating and maybe a few were hoping, …

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