• IBM Merlin Brings New Approach to Developing on IBM i

  May 4, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM is rolling out a new application development framework dubbed Merlin as part of its release of IBM i version 7.5. Designed primarily as a lightweight alternative to RDi and running in containers, Merlin could provide a guide for how IBM sources and distributes development tools going forward.

  Merlin is a new Licensed Program Product (LPP) offering from IBM designed to enable IBM i developers to create new ILE programs from scratch, or to modernize existing ones. The software, which is officially called Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration, is based on a mix of open source and proprietary tools from …

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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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• The Prickly Pear Of Auto ID For IBM i

  December 16, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Good companies can batten down the hatches and pilot their enterprise through rough economic waters, but great companies identify opportunities and successfully pursue them whether or not times are good or bad. It takes a bit of pliability to be adaptable enough to not just accept change, but to embrace it, and also to be certain enough of your company and its customers to build a core user base and just serve those customers relentlessly with steady improvements. This is a tough balancing act, but if you look at the case studies, you find this balance is what gives companies …

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• VS Code Provides Another Coding Option for IBM i

  December 9, 2020 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are looking for an alternative to IBM’s Rational Developer for IBM i (RDi) may want to check out a lightweight code editor from Microsoft called Visual Studio Code (VS Code). Thanks to extensions for IBM i languages developed by the opensource community, VS Code can support native development in RPG, CL, and SQL.

  First released by Microsoft in 2015, VS Code provides a basic environment for writing and editing code. It features debugging, syntax highlighting, intelligent code completion, snippets, and code refactoring, as well as embedded Git. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac, and while …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Taking The Pulse Of IBM i Developers

  January 22, 2020 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It takes someone who has experience in application development to create and sell tools that help make a developer’s job easier. We think about the tool creators, but when it comes to getting people to adopt a new technology, the technical sales team at any software company is the bridge that connects developers of tools to the developer of applications who can be helped by those tools. In this edition of Thoroughly Modern, we are talking with Stephen Flaherty, a technical engineer at Fresche Solutions, about what IBM i developers are thinking about and doing today.

  Timothy Prickett Morgan: …

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• Need Help Approving A Modernization Project? Try A Business-Led Approach

  October 14, 2019 Ajay Gomez

  Getting momentum and buy-in for a modernization project can be tough. I’ve lived through this and fought the battle many times. What makes it difficult is that the problem is not obvious and needs to be explained to people outside of IT. For example, it’s not obvious to a business leader that RPG II code should be modernized to RPG ILE. In fact, if we were to modernize the underlying code without telling them, they wouldn’t notice a difference. The business doesn’t see the effects of modernization unless it’s UI modernization, which is why it’s tough to get buy-in.

  Interestingly …

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• 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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• Cloud Data Migration Service Launched For IBM i

  October 3, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Companies that want to move data from their IBM i server into the public cloud environment have a new solution available from Accur8 Software, which last week debuted a new data migration as a service (DMaaS) offering based on its integration platform.

  According to Accur8 Software, the new Data Migration as a Service (DMaaS) offering provides a way for customers to migrate data from Db2 for i to public cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

  Microsoft and Amazon – as well as Google Cloud Compute, often cited as the third main public cloud platform …

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• Guru: Getting The Message, Part 1

  August 1, 2018 Paul Tuohy

  Author’s Note: This article was originally published in October 2009. Since then I have worked on many modernization projects with many clients and, in every one of those projects, we have used some form of the contents of this (and the following) article. The content of the article has been updated for free form RPG and some of the coding enhancements that have been introduced, into RPG, since the original publication of this piece.

  When we look at modernizing applications (or writing new applications) one of the basic principles is to tier the application — i.e., separate the interface — …

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• Insurer Chooses IBM i Database Re-Engineering Over Migration

  March 26, 2018 Dan Burger

  How do you want your database designed for the future and what problems have you created in the past that need to be fixed before you can think about the future? Old databases, originally designed for a business environment that has changed and continues to change, are not compatible. You may not be feeling any pain today and you may have no plans to change your business/IT alignment in the future, but much of the technology-driven business world is changing, which at some point will leave you alone on an island with a boat but no motor and no paddle. …

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