• Mono Port To IBM i Now Available

  October 31, 2018 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that want to run Microsoft .NET can now do so through the Mono middleware, which was officially ported to IBM i and AIX earlier this year by the Mono community. While the port is not feature complete, Mono can now run on IBM i 7.1 and higher via the PASE AIX runtime. It’s not a native port, but it’s better than nothing.

  Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET Framework, including a C# compiler and the Common Language Runtime (CLR), that allow .NET applications to run on non-Windows platforms, including Linux, MacOS, BSD, various flavors …

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• Visual LANSA Goes Low-Code With High Tech Update

  August 15, 2018 Alex Woodie

  As one of the original advocates of fourth-generation language (4GLs), LANSA knows a thing or two about the value of abstraction layers. While the hype around 4GLs has long since passed, LANSA continues to build on its foundation with new features aimed at keeping customers ahead of the technology curve. That work is on display with the recent update to its “low-code” environment, Visual LANSA version 14 SP2.

  Visual LANSA is LANSA‘s flagship integrated development environment (IDE) for creating modern graphical applications. The IDE employs numerous techniques to minimize the amount of Rapid Development and Maintenance Language (RDML, its …

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• Coming Attractions: The IBM i App Dev Multi-Platform Show

  November 13, 2017 Dan Burger

  Multi-platform development is more vision than reality. Application development is still a siloed environment as programming work remains more isolated and less collaborative than visionary thinkers wish it to be. Therefore, the existence of multiple programming environments within an organization seldom reaches the goal of operating as a team. Much of the potential benefit of teamwork lingers out of reach. Instead of a single team with common operations, there are individual teams with individual operations.

  The good news is that it’s better than it used to be. Still, the fabric of multi-platform unity and the efficiencies it would bring to …

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• Java On IBM i: A Developing Situation

  October 16, 2017 Dan Burger

  IBM i developers in the Java camp have some changes in store as Java 9 replaces Java 8. First of all, there will be no IBM i support for Java 9. This break in tradition may come as a surprise for many IBM i developers, but not for those Java-holics who have been closely watching the Java 9 news. There are a couple of reasons IBM has decided not to support Java 9 on IBM i, even though IBM currently supports Java 7 and Java 8 and it has supported every Java release seemingly since Moby Dick was a minnow. …

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• Guru: IBM i, .Net, and XMLSERVICE Program and Subprocedure Calls

  September 25, 2017 Richard Schoen

  Our businesses have years of existing IBM i legacy applications that contain priceless business logic. We need to re-purpose that code without re-writing so our existing IBM i business logic can be accessed and used by our desktop applications, web applications, web services, and mobile device applications, which often expect JSON or XML-based data. Instead of re-writing your existing business logic, surface it so the code can be called as-is.

  For this article we’ll focus on the XMLSERVICE remote program call and remote subprocedure calls that can be used to call existing logic based in existing RPG, COBOL and CL …

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• Does IBM i Need More Databases?

  August 14, 2017 Alex Woodie

  There are many things that differentiate IBM i from other platforms, including its storage, security, and programming models. But one of the most unique aspects of the IBM i platform is its integrated DB2 database, which is used exclusively by practically all IBM i customers. You just don’t find this on other platforms. But perhaps it’s time for IBM i to diversify its database support?

  In many respects, DB2 for i is the platform’s greatest strength. IBM i is renowned for its transaction processing prowess that drives ERP and other line of business applications, and DB2 for i (formerly DB2/400, …

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