JavaScript Archives

Building A Positive Culture of Learning On IBM i

February 18, 2019 Alex Woodie

How do you motivate IBM i programmers to keep learning new technologies, long after they have mastered the RPG skills they use the most? There’s no simple answer to that question, which was the topic of a recent conversation IT Jungle had with PHP on IBM i guru Alan Seiden and Heidi Schmidt, the head of PKS Software.

IBM i shops face several interrelated problems when it comes to their personnel, which traditionally is one of the biggest line items in the IT budget. These challenges include: the aging of IBM i professionals; the retirements of baby boomer-aged personnel; the …
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2019 Predictions: IBM i Trend Spotting

January 23, 2019 Alex Woodie

What will happen in the IBM i community this year? Maybe IBM will launch a public cloud service? Or IBM i shops will find the budget to get busy with application modernization? It’s really anybody’s guess, which is why IT Jungle solicited predictions from prominent names in the community to get their take on what will happen this year.

The wider IT community is moving quickly to adopt next-gen development methodologies, and those will increasingly find their way into the IBM i community in 2019, predicts Dan Magid, vice president of solution sales with Rocket Software.

“2019 will bring …
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What Is The State Of Your IBM i Modernization?

December 3, 2018 Amanda Blackburn

(Sponsored Content) Each IBM i shop has its own history with the platform, and its own approach to dealing with change. Some run the server like it’s still 1988, while others have invested time and money to modernize their systems and applications. Understanding the state of modernization across the IBM i community as a whole can help us discover where each of us sits on this IBM i journey and help us prepare our organizations for new challenges and opportunities.

The IBM i server turned 30 this year, which was the cause of much celebration at industry events around the …
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Guru: Right-Size Your PHP

December 3, 2018 Alan Seiden

In my experience doing performance audits, I often point out that while PHP for IBM i comes perfectly configured for small applications, it must often be tuned to handle large workloads. When applications must accommodate hundreds or thousands of users, or use AJAX technology, two easy changes should be considered for PHP and Apache configurations.

1. PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN Setting In fastcgi.conf

On IBM i, Zend Server installs a configuration file called fastcgi.conf. Among other settings, it includes PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN, which determines how many PHP jobs run when its Apache server is started. The file — /www/zendphp7/conf/fastcgi.conf (Zend Server 9 or higher) or …
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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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Guru: Speed Up Web Pages Using Apache’s mod_deflate

July 9, 2018 Alan Seiden

If your web applications run on HTTP Server (Powered by Apache) for i, you can enable a powerful Apache extension, mod_deflate, to speed up your site. Just as zipping up files on your PC saves space and accelerates file transfers, mod_deflate “allows output from your server to be compressed before being sent to the client over the network.” (See https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_deflate.html for more information.) My tests show a speed improvement of 10 to 50 percent.

You can compress any text-based output, including HTML (whether plain .html files, output from RPG CGI programs, PHP, or other languages), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), …
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CNX Opens Up Valence to Non-IBM i Platforms

June 20, 2018 Alex Woodie

CNX has removed several key technological limitations in its Valence application development framework, ranging from what JavaScript libraries the software works with, all the way to what server operating systems the generated applications run on.

Despite its numerical designation, the launch of Valence version 5.2 at the COMMON POWERUp18 conference in San Antonio, Texas, last month was hailed by CNX as a major announcement. According to Richard Milone, CNX’s co-founder and managing partner, the company was able to complete several major development projects in time for the delivery of version 5.2.

Four major changes accompany the release, according to Milone. …
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Three IBM i Trends To Watch This Year

January 10, 2018 Alex Woodie

Happy New Year! As we roll out of bed and shake off the cobwebs of 2017, it’s worth taking some time to think about what 2018 will bring to the IBM i ecosystem, and what it could mean to IBM i professionals, in hopes of getting off to a hot (or maybe just less cold) start to the new year.

Here are three big trends to keep an eye on as the months gradually turn into a year. It starts off with everybody’s favorite topic, security.

1. Focus on Security

When the calendar flipped to 2017, there was a palpable …
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1. PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN Setting In fastcgi.conf

1. Focus on Security

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