• Guru: Going Dark In RDi

  August 19, 2019 Paul Tuohy

  In this article I am going to show you how to configure RDi for dark mode. Dark mode is where the background of an application is changed from white to black. Some say that dark mode makes text (and especially code) easier to read. Others say it’s more difficult to read. Personally, I am a convert, but I know other developers who hate it. Maybe you should give it a try and see which you prefer.

  Recently, there has been a lot of debate about dark mode (mostly prompted by Apple introducing it as an option in its operating systems), …

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• Guru Classic: Everybody Likes Shortcuts! Part 1, Navigation

  August 14, 2019 Susan Gantner

  I wrote the original version of this tip a few years ago but I still find a lot of RPGers aren’t using keyboard shortcuts as much as I think they should be. Since shortcuts can make you so much more productive, I’m re-visiting this topic with a few updates for changes in more recent versions of RDi. It’s also a follow-on to my last Guru Classic tip on RDi keyboard shortcuts.

  I’ve seen a particularly sharp increase in the use of RDi (or Rational Developer for i) by RPGers in recent years. I suspect that has a lot to …

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• Guru: RDi Code Coverage Without SEPs

  August 12, 2019 Susan Gantner

  My last Guru tip provided an introduction to RDi’s Code Coverage tool that you can use to determine how complete your tests are. In that tip I discussed how to run it using Service Entry Points (SEPs). In this follow-on tip, I’ll continue the exploration of this tool with some additional details plus introduce you to an alternative way to run a Code Coverage session.

  Before going into the alternative approach to running Code Coverage, there are a few details I didn’t mention in the first tip.

  I mentioned that Code Coverage uses the debug engine. What I didn’t mention …

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• Guru: How Thorough Was Your Last Test? RDi Code Coverage Can Tell You

  July 22, 2019 Susan Gantner

  When you’ve made changes to one or more programs, you test all the changes – right? And, of course, you also test all the rest of the code just to make sure you didn’t break anything else. Did you do that with your last set of changes? Did you test ALL the code? Enabling you to answer that last question is what RDi’s Code Coverage facility is all about.

  This is an introduction to Code Coverage — the basics of both why and how to use it. Before I go into how to run it, it may pique your interest …

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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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• ARCAD Brings Traditional 5250 Development Into DevOps Fold

  June 24, 2019 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers who embrace modern DevOps techniques typically also use modern development tools, like RDi. Much of the IBM i world uses IBM’s latest development environment, but many have resisted. Now, thanks to new software from ARCAD Software, IBM i developers who work with older tools like PDM can also partake of the benefits of DevOps.

  Getting older IBM i developers on board with the latest tools and techniques is a big priority for ARCAD Software, according to Alexandre Codinach, vice president of Americas for ARCAD Software, which included the new 5250 development capabilities with the launch of …

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• Guru Classic: Giving RDi a Split Personality

  June 19, 2019 Susan Gantner

  A commonly asked question by RDi newbies is: “How do I view source in split screen like I can in SEU?” The answer is that you can’t do it exactly like SEU, but then why would you want to? The RDi editor offers far greater flexibility.

  The original version of my tip on this subject was published back in 2007. Back then, the toolset we know as RDi was called “WDSC”. Quite a lot of other changes have occurred within RDi as well. Originally, a specialized perspective was required to make this feature work well. Today’s RDi works well without …

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• Bucking the System: Higher Ed, Hold the College

  June 12, 2019 Alex Woodie

  Jim Buck spent 15 years teaching IBM i and RPG at Gateway Technical College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Buck achieved great things there, finding hundreds of students good jobs around the country. But ultimately the college experience grew old for Buck, so he ventured out on his own. That’s when he founded his own online IBM i educational company, imPower Technologies.

  That was two years ago, in the spring of 2017. After spending almost a year getting imPower Technologies up and running, Buck is teaching students IBM i and RPG once again. Currently he offers two courses: an introduction to IBM …

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• Speaking The SQL Lingua Franca On IBM i

  June 3, 2019 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  No matter what the job is, we all start out somewhere that is pretty far from being an expert and we depend on our elders and mentors to help us learn all the tricks and get good at the work.

  So it is with the nearly ubiquitous database query language, Structured Query Language, or SQL for short. It started out in the head of IBMer Ted Codd back in 1969, which was coincidentally when the System/3 minicomputer launched and its successor many generations later, the System/38 in 1978, was the first IBM system and the first system in the world …

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• IBM Bolsters RPG And COBOL Development

  May 13, 2019 Alex Woodie

  Amid the many and varied enhancements that IBM rolled out last month for its IBM i operating system was a collection of improvements for its core development tooling, including the Eclipse-based Rational Developer for i (RDi) as well as Rational Development Studio for i, which contains the RPG and COBOL compilers.

  Let’s start with the RPG and COBOL compilers in Rational Development Studio for i, since updates to these strategic pieces are more infrequent than the updates to RDi, which shares a common base with integrated development environments (IDEs) for other operating systems and therefore updated more frequently.

  The biggest …

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