• Calling All IBM i Platforms. . .

  August 16, 2021 Daniel Magid

  In a microservices world, all elements of what used to be monolithic application programs are now chunks of code linked to each other using any number of application programming interfaces, or APIs. Those APIs can be based on a remote procedure call, or RPC, architecture, which is a kind of generic distributed client/server approach, or the REST – short for representational state transfer – architecture favored by parts of the commercial Web software stack that has dramatically grown in popularity in the past two decades. Either way – and in fact, there are more than two ways – APIs are …

  Read more

• Innovating And Thriving with IBM i

  July 26, 2021 Alex Woodie

  You may have noticed that the IBM i server has developed a certain reputation, and it’s not always a good one. There are folks among us who consider IBM i to be a “legacy” platform, something that should be invested in as little as possible and moved away from at the earliest convenience. But as a panel of experts at the recent OCEAN conference demonstrated, it is possible to not only innovate on the IBM i, but to create a culture where the business and its employees can thrive.

  The Orange County Educational Advancement Network, or OCEAN, pulled together …

  Read more

• Profound Goes Low Code with Node.js Framework

  June 30, 2021 Alex Woodie

  Profound Logic is now shipping a new release of Profound.js, its Node.js-based application framework for IBM i and other platforms. The big new feature with version 5.3 is the adoption of a low-code paradigm that eliminates the need for developers to get their hands dirty writing and maintaining code. However, developers can still go behind the scenes and write code if they need to.

  While there may be other low-code tools advertised in the IBM i community, Profound.js is the IBM i community’s first true low-code development environment, according to Alex Roytman, the founder and CEO of Profound Logic. …

  Read more

• 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. …

  Read more

• PHP Decisions Loom as Original Distro Reaches End of Life

  May 24, 2021 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops have five more weeks until Zend Server Basic, the PHP runtime used by thousands of IBM i shops over the years, reaches end of life and will no longer be offered, supported, or updated with security fixes. Customers that want to continue using PHP safely beyond July 1 will need to obtain a new license or move to a new PHP runtime.

  The long history of Zend Server Basic stretches all the way back to 2006, which was the year when the PHP runtime became one of the first open source technologies to be adapted to run …

  Read more

• Open Source Technology Stands On The Shoulders Of Legacy Applications

  May 3, 2021 Michael Killian

  From microservices to the cloud, executives often want to follow all the latest IT trends. Application developers are no different, except that they want to preserve all of the hard work they and their colleagues have done, while still meeting the new demands of the business. How can this be done? The answer could lie in employing open-source technologies, but in a manner that acknowledges that these technologies would never have been able to flourish without business-oriented languages such as RPG and the applications that millions of programmers have created and supported over more than four decades.

  RPG Gave Us

  …

  Read more

• 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 …

  Read more

• OpenShift Provides One Path To IBM i Modernization

  March 29, 2021 Alex Woodie

  The crown jewel in IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat arguably is OpenShift, which is a Kubernetes-based container management system for running “cloud-native” applications. While it’s unlikely OpenShift will ever integrate directly with IBM i and its applications, IBM has high hopes the software will help usher in a new wave of application modernization and innovation among IBM i customers.

  IBM Power engineer Joe Cropper laid out the case for IBM i shops to get going with OpenShift two weeks ago during the IBM i Futures conference, which was hosted by COMMON. Cropper, you will remember, made a …

  Read more

• What The Open Source Roadmap Holds For IBM i In 2021

  March 15, 2021 Alex Woodie

  2020 was whirlwind of a year when it comes to open source on IBM i, with many major new open source products coming to the platform. The roadmap for open source software in 2021 may not be quite as active as last year, but there will be some compelling new technology to play with, coming from IBM and the community, IBM’s open source guru Jesse Gorzinski tells us.

  “Last year was a pretty big year for open source,” says Gorzinski, whose official IBM title is senior business architect for open source software on IBM i. “In 2021, we’re going to …

  Read more

• Guru: For IBM i Newcomers, An Access Client Solutions Primer

  March 1, 2021 Rob McNelly

  I enjoy reading about IBM i Fresh Faces. Sure, it’s refreshing to see that it’s not just graybeards like me who are working on the platform, but what really matters is that young people are learning about, getting hands-on with, and coming to love IBM i. I appreciate that many of these stories revolve around system/application modernization and open source solutions. This gives newcomers to IBM i a degree of comfort by reducing their learning curve.

  Learning any new technology is challenging. Specifically, how do you go from learning about the concepts to actually getting on a machine and …

  Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles