• IBM Developing AI Coding Assistant for IBM i

  May 22, 2024 Alex Woodie

  During his keynote presentation at the POWERUp 2024 conference Monday, IBM i CTO Steve Will announced that IBM is actively exploring ways to incorporate generative AI into the IBM i platform. The most promising of three individual but related projects is a plan to build a large language model (LLM)-powered coding assistant for IBM i that will initially provide three functions to support RPG development, with more expected in the future.

  The genesis of the coding assisting project for RPG, which doesn’t have a name yet, can be traced to last year’s launch of watsonx Code Assistant for Z, which …

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• Guru: Testing URLs With HTTP_GET_VERBOSE

  May 20, 2024 Gregory Simmons

  In my previous article Fooling around with SQL and RPG, I explored having a little fun with the HTTP_GET function to fetch a witty Dad Joke from https://icanhazdadjoke.com/. In this article, I want to demonstrate a more practical use of this great function. Or should I say, another version of HTTP_GET, that is HTTP_GET_VERBOSE, which also was introduced to us by the DB2 team in V7R3.

  In its simplest implementation, I can insert the URL I want to test into an SQL statement:

  select *
  from table(QSYS2.HTTP_GET_VERBOSE('https://icanhazdadjoke.com/',''))
  

  I will later want to run this embedded in an RPG …

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• Database Enhancements Galore In Spring 2024 IBM i TRs

  May 13, 2024 Alex Woodie

  The IBM i server is a database machine at the end of the day, so it’s not surprising that the latest technology refreshes (TRs) focus heavily on enhancements to Db2 for i. From new aggregate functions for the query optimizer to new and improved SQL-based IBM i services, there’s plenty of database goodness to go around in these releases.

  On May 7, IBM announced IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10. You can read the announcement letters for the two releases here and here. The functionality for the two releases, which will become generally available on June 14, is …

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• Guru: The OpenAI API – The Easy Way

  May 13, 2024 Dan Darnell

  When it comes to programming in a particular programming language there is what you can do and what you can do easily. I use RPG every day and have done so since the System/34 days. I love the language but I’ve also picked up other programming languages over time because sometimes RPG isn’t the right tool for the job.

  I’ve been using IBM EGL – Enterprise Generation Language – to create IBM i applications since 2009. IBM made a push at one time to entice RPG programmers to pick up the language and toolset (Rational Business Developer) for modernization …

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• Spring 2024 IBM i Technology Refresh Unveiled by IBM

  May 8, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM today took the wraps off the latest Technology Refresh for the IBM i platform. When IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10 ship on June 14, customers will find enhancements such as Merlin version 2, new features in Navigator and ACS, security improvements, a couple of RPG enhancements, HA and DR enhancements, and a host of new SQL-based database services, among other capabilities.

  In addition to new features, which we’ll get to in a second, the launch of IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10 is important for an unexpected reason: It will mark the beginning of IBM’s transition …

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• IBM Cranks Up the Performance for Run SQL Scripts

  April 24, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Access Client Solutions (ACS) users who are tired of waiting for database fields to resolve in the Run SQL Scripts (RSS) facility will be happy to hear that IBM felt their pain and RSS will return data much more quickly to return data with ACS version 1.1.9.5, which IBM shipped earlier this month.

  The speed-up of field resolution time was listed as a concern to at least one IBM i user, who took to IBM Power Ideas Portal to voice his or her concern. “Simply put the resolution of potential field makes content assist almost unusable,” the user wrote. “I …

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• Guru: Web Concepts For The RPG Developer, Part 1

  April 22, 2024 Chris Ringer

  Way back in the 1990s, I recall accessing data with only RPG III F-Specs. But nowadays some of that critical data may live in the cloud. The good news is tools like HTTPAPI and RXS and SQL functions like SQL HTTP are available to access that remote data from the IBM i. But what you may not know is how to actually format components in those HTTP requests.

  Here I will discuss some techniques to build those components in an HTTP request before sending it across the web.

  HTTP Get Versus Post

  The two most common methods for an HTTP …

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• Guru: Fooling Around With SQL And RPG

  April 15, 2024 Gregory Simmons

  Editor’s Note: This was originally scheduled to be published on April 1. No joke. And for a lot of complex reasons, that could not happen. But, it’s still fun, so enjoy.

  I started out one morning, purely interested in having a bit of fun. Honest. In RSS within ACS, I often like to run this SQL:

   select *
   from json_table(
        QSYS2.HTTP_GET('https://icanhazdadjoke.com/',
                '{"header": "Accept,application/json", "sslTolerate":"true"}'),
                'lax $' columns ("joke" varchar(200) CCSID 1208)
        )
  

  

  Okay, that was fun. This is harmless, good fun. But then I thought, what if I put this into a simple RPG program? Then I …

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• What the 2024 Marketplace Report Says About IBM i App Dev, Language Use

  March 13, 2024 Alex Woodie

  What languages, development environments, and tools are IBM i developers currently using to create new applications? How many users are still on SEU? And how are VS Code and Merlin faring among Web-based development tools? Fortra sought to answer those questions with its IBM i Marketplace Survey for 2024, and the results may surprise you.

  In late 2023, Fortra surveyed 270 IBM i professionals from around the world for the 2024 IBM i Marketplace Survey, which it published in January. You can download the report here.

  For the most part, Fortra asks the same questions every year, which is …

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• More Db2 Web Query Alternatives, And An Update

  March 11, 2024 Alex Woodie

  It has been five months since IBM abruptly killed off Db2 Web Query, the IBM i-based suite of business intelligence tools that Big Blue OEMed from Information Builders. Some customers have already settled on a replacement, but many others are still combing the market looking for a good fit.

  The product that is arguably the most well-positioned to replace Db2 Web Query is WebFOCUS, the Information Builders product on which Db2 Web Query is based. IBM had an OEM agreement with the New York-based company for more 15 years before it abruptly ended in October.

  IT Jungle has asked Information …

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