• Database And Developer Enhancements In IBM i 7.5 And 7.4 TR6

  May 9, 2022 Alex Woodie

  IBM has made a number of enhancements to the Db2 for i database with the launch of IBM i 7.5, which becomes generally available tomorrow. It also is bringing new features for developers, including changes to Integrated Web Services (IWS), which will improve REST integration.

  Most of the new features added to Db2 for i are only available in IBM i 7.5, which will give users a reason to adopt it. However, there are a few enhancements added in IBM i 7.4 Technology Release 6, which doesn’t ship until May 24.

  As we previously reported, IBM i 7.5 expands …

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• 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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• Reader Feedback On State Of The IBM i Base, IBM i Salaries

  April 11, 2022 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, TPM:

  I have been enjoying your series on the state of the IBM i environment. Those and other recent IT Jungle articles have helped me better understand some of the things that I am seeing as a training vendor.

  As you and I have often discussed, the IBM i market has divided into two groups: the roughly 30,000 active customers and 120,000 others. My company, Manta Technologies, has customers among both groups.

  As a former math professor, I tend to think in Venn diagrams. I had to fight the urge to pull out the colored pencils when I read …

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• New Extension Brings IBM i Closer to VS Code

  August 11, 2021 Alex Woodie

  When it comes to integrated development environments (IDEs), Microsoft is best known for its full-featured Visual Studio offering. But many developers have grown attached to its younger, free-er, and lighter weight cousin, Visual Studio Code (VS Code). And with the new VS Code for IBM i extension recently unveiled by Liam Allan, the skinny IDE’s integration with the midrange server is getting better.

  VS Code for IBM i is an open source extension that allows developers to work with IBM i languages like RPG, COBOL, and CL within VS Code. Allan first released the product in February, but largely kept …

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• In The API World, Nobody Knows You Are An IBM i

  August 2, 2021 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  One of the earliest memes of the early years of the commercial Internet was captured in a famous cartoon in The New Yorker magazine penned by Peter Steiner and showing a dog at a computer, which quipped: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

  Somewhere back in the archive – it was in September 1997, which is not online because we were a paper, subscription publication for the first seven years of The Four Hundred – we did a riff on this meme with a lead essay called, On The Net, No One Knows You Are An AS/400. …

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• In Search Of Next Gen IBM i Apps

  June 28, 2021 Alex Woodie

  What will become of our RPG and COBOL applications? If IBM i chief architect Steve Will has his way, the core elements of them will evolve into what he calls “next gen” applications that can run in the cloud, if necessary.

  “We are not just focusing anymore on trying to help clients get past green screens to mobile interfaces or Web interfaces,” Will said during his recent COMMON NAViGATE session, titled IBM i PLUS Cloud is the Answer. “There are still clients and applications that need to get there. We understand that. But you can’t just stop there now. …

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• Modern Tools For A Modern IBM i

  May 26, 2021 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops may be in for a rude awakening when they suddenly realize their applications are not keeping up with the times. How can these IBM i shops get on the right track in the modernization department? A trio of IBMers offered some tips.

  Brad Bentley, Tim Rowe, and Kris Whitney took to the virtual airwaves last week to present “IBM Tools for Modernizing Your IBM i Applications,” a one-hour webinar from IBM. Application modernization is an extremely broad topic, as the 266-page IBM Redbook of the (almost) same name will attest to, so they obviously didn’t cover …

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• ILEditor2: Satisfying The Need For Development Speed

  April 28, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Liam Allan doesn’t like anything to slow him down. “I’m impatient,” says the young IBM i phenom. So when he’s writing RPG or COBOL, the code editor had best keep up with him. That’s a problem using something like Rational Developer for IBM i (RDi), which Allan doesn’t particularly care for. And that is one of the primary reasons why Allan developed ILEditor, which is now in its second incarnation as ILEditor 2.

  Just over a year ago, Allan and his business partner, Connor Holyday, shipped the first release of ILEditor 2. The pair had just completed an extensive …

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• SoftLanding Adds Support for Source Stream Files

  February 3, 2021 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops developing in a mix of open source and native languages can now manage all of their development projects together in a new release of SoftLanding Systems’ TURNOVER software. The big change that enables that open source support is how SoftLanding adapted its change management software to support stream files on the IFS. The company also took the opportunity to add a new Web interface and rebrand its entire TURNOVER suite of products.

  First, let’s clear up the name changes. TURNOVER Lifecycle Manager is the new name of the change management software that used to go by TURNOVER …

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• 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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