• Guru: Refactoring RPG – GOTO

  August 27, 2018 Ted Holt

  When I first learned COBOL, I coded loops the way all the programmers in my shop did — with GO TO. Paragraph names were labels, not routines. Then I took a class in COBOL and learned structured programming. I’ve never looked back. I wish other people felt the same way, because I don’t like to work on GOTO-laden programs.

  Injudicious use of branching — in RPG that would be the GOTO and CABxx op codes — is a major reason I refactor. GOTO plays havoc with program “logic”, a word I hesitate to use in this context. The minute someone …

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• Outsourcing Comes Back Home

  July 23, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Getting a full-time job at a company that uses an IBM i platform as its main backend system is not any easier now that it was a decade or two ago, but getting work in the field – particularly as an independent contractor or one working from an outsourcing provider located within the United States – seems to be looking up.

  To get a feel of what is going on out there in the IT job market, we had a chat with Harley Lippman, founder and chief executive officer at Genesis10, which provides job placement services as well as …

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• PTC Refines Handling Of IBM i Database Logic

  July 18, 2018 Alex Woodie

  More organizations are moving business logic from RPG and COBOL programs into the DB2 for i database, which most community members agree is a good thing. The IBM i server’s core strength is its integrated a database, after all. However, when business logic moves into the database, it requires customers to rethink how they’re managing the code, which is a mantle that PTC has taken up with its Implementer software change management (SCM) tool.

  When it comes to application modernization, fancy HTML5 screens and mobile apps usually grab the spotlight. We’re often moved by the things we can see, and …

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• VACAVA’s Low-Code Approach To Modernization

  July 9, 2018 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops have lots of options when it comes to application modernization. At one end of the spectrum are screen-scraper tools, which can provide a quick fix for shops tired with the 5250 interface. IBM i shops with more time, money, and inspiration may choose to completely rewrite their application on a new platform. Somewhere in between lies RapidBIZ, a low-code modernization affair from VACAVA.

  The folks at VACAVA knows a thing or two about the IBM i platform. For starters, the company is based in Rochester, Minnesota, home of the world-famous IBM lab where the AS/400 was created …

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• IBM Kills iAccess for Windows, Older RDi Versions

  April 18, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Spring is still weeks away in the Upper Midwest, where it still feels like winter. But that didn’t stop the IBM i leadership in Rochester, Minnesota from embarking upon some spring cleaning by sending out to pasture some development tooling and admin interfaces for IBM i, including older releases of RDi and all of iAccess for Windows.

  IBM yesterday announced that effective April 30, 2019, it will withdraw IBM i Access for Windows. That announcement puts the final nail in the coffin of the old Windows-based client that traces its roots back to OpsNav.

  Here’s the short announcement posted to …

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• Tesla Teases IBM i Software Vendor Into Some Experimental Coding

  April 16, 2018 Dan Burger

  First of all, let me assure you this is not Car & Driver. You’re going to hear about a car and a driver, but the resemblance stops there. The driver is Alex Roytman and the car is a Tesla Model 3. I’d describe the car as a “cross-over” because it appeals to driving enthusiasts and technology geeks. I’d describe Roytman as an enthusiast, more so in the second category than the first.

  Loyal IT Jungle readers are familiar with Roytman because he’s the CEO of Profound Logic, an IBM i modernization company specializing in Web and mobile application …

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• Rocket Gits Hip to Emerging IBM i Tech

  January 31, 2018 Alex Woodie

  When it comes to managing traditional IBM i development environments, Rocket Software has its bases covered. But as younger technologies and younger developers find their way onto the platform, Rocket found that it had some work to do to ensure that DevOps – or application lifecycle management (ALM), if you like — runs as smoothly as its enterprise customers expect. That’s the case with the vendor’s announcement today around Git.

  Rocket Software today announced that it’s now supporting Git with the Aldon Lifecycle Manager (Enterprise Edition), the company’s ALM product for open systems environments like Windows, Linux, and Unix. The …

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• Fresche Plan: Guidance Leads To Growth

  December 4, 2017 Dan Burger

  Without wings, an airplane has no chance to fly. A legacy-based IBM i shop is like an airplane without wings. During the past few years, more companies have recognized that IT modernization is necessary. It’s a complex problem with many moving parts and deserves a strategic approach for best results. At the same time, the transition has become an easier problem to solve.

  Tools have evolved and much of the manual labor that was once required has been automated. And service providers have stepped up to handle work that companies are ill-equipped to take on themselves. Companies that are quick …

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• Mainframe And IBM i Share App Dev Testing Tool

  November 29, 2017 Dan Burger

  The integration of disparate IT systems is on the priority list for many companies aggravated by the duplication of effort and the cost tooling for each development environment. It’s fueled the rise of DevOps and the big picture view emphasizing speed and collaboration. For IT environments that share mainframe and IBM i platforms, we have uncovered software that allows applications written in COBOL, PL/I, EGL, RPG and Assembler to share a single tool for testing programs.

  The tool is called XaTester and it’s available through IBM and the company, Xact Consulting, that created it. Xact Consulting is an international …

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• Should Spark In-Memory Run Natively On IBM i?

  November 6, 2017 Alex Woodie

  There’s a revolution happening in the field of data analytics, and an open source computing framework called Apache Spark is right smack in the middle of it. Spark is such a powerful tool that IBM elected to create a distribution of it that runs natively on its System z mainframe. Will it do the same for its baby mainframe, the IBM i?

  So, what is Apache Spark, and why should you care? Great questions! Let’s introduce you to Spark.

  Spark came out of UC Berkeley’s AMPLab about five years ago to provide a faster and easier-to-use alternative to MapReduce, which …

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