I'm an IBMi Developer - do I choose SEU, RSE or WDSC?

If your caught between using SEU (Stoneage Editting Utility) and RSE (Really Stupidly Expensive) for your IBM-i code development environment - you have one other glaringly obvious choice - WDSC (Wonderful Double Super Codetool).

Personally, I like WDSC because its $FREE. This was the last iteration of the Websphere Development suite before IBM, rebuilt and rebranded it as the 'Rational Developer Tool' and decided to charge $900 per copy. For Freelance RPG Programmers like me that just puts the tool completely out of my budget. I pay one third of that for a license for every piece of Microsoft Software out there... but enough of my gripes about IBM's ridiculous software costs for us freelancers.

All of us IBMi Developers use the System I Network as the holy grail of IBMi IT resources on the web. But not everybody knows you can get the monthly magazine for free……

System I News is the a free monthly magazine, in both physical and pdf format, that tells you what’s going on at IBM and specifically focussed on what happening with our ERP platform, new OS releases, service packs and security changes.

For example, this recent issue has covered the new OS IBMi v7 release (which finally lets us render webpages, XML, SOAP/REST and even PDFs direct from within RPG programs J), Security updates for IBMi V6. Web Enabling Legacy Apps like JBA, an interesting Open Source Document Management system that uses the Cloud for data storage and lots of other little nuggets of IT info…

System I News is free when you register at System I Network

The FREE Associate version is 50 pages of relevant articles and news for any professional involved with the IBMi platform. (there also a $paid PROVIP version for us IBMi Developers but its more code specific)

WDSC is a terrific graphical Coding Tool for the IBMi - Best in class of the 'free as400 coding' tools. For editing RPG and/or CL its a no brainer. Clean screen editing and a whole bunch of very cool tools that simply blow the old SEU environment out of the water.

"But what about the old SDA warhorse" I hear you ask.

Perhaps some of you are even, secretly, using RLU for your printer file layouts. (RLU gets a bad rap imho - I kinnd of like it, but thats another story completely)

SDA/RLU with WDSC 7 SDA is very easy to use with WDSC, once you have found out how to get it running: The WDSC-SDA component is called 'CODE Designer' and is included on one of the CDs distributed with WDSC 7.0. However, it's not installed by the WDSC installer. I dont know why its not installed by default - IBM are a bit crazy like that.

After WDSC is installed, you have to put the CODE CD into the drive and run the install program for that CD. WDSC 7.0 includes CODE and it works just fine on Win XP, Vista and Win7 (as I have it running on all three versions)

WebSphere Development Tools for the IBMi is Very Very Very Cool!

I've just installed WDSC7.0 for the first time (/me ducks from the barrage of rotten fruit launched at him from the rowdy-RDi-crowd) and have almost had a religious experience with it.

For years I've been feverishly hammering away in S.E.U. and P.D.M. mistakenly thinking that I just haven't got the time to learn a new G.U.I for writing RPG and CL programs on the IBMi.

Look at that - I used WDSC, RDi, SEU, PDM, GUI and IBMi all in the same paragraph ;) but at least I never used the word leverage or any other business junk phrases like lets run that idea up the flagpole and see who salutes

Wow! It's December already!

After a whirlwind year involving moving the whole family, two dogs and a pile of News 3x/400 magazines to this side of the pond I cant believe it's nearly 2010 already. Two thousand nine has seen us settling into our new life in the US, focussing mainly on IBMi and I feel that I've reached a kind of career milestone. After a couple of years focusing on other areas, in the IT wilderness, this year has seen my return to the IBM Midrange club and in the immortal words of Gary Glitter “I’m glad to be back”

The last twelve months have seen huge changes in my personal outlook on information technology and my role within it. I've learned more about programming techniques than I thought possible and its seriously changed how I approach my role as an IBMi Developer.

I've attended a couple of fantastic conferences (Rpg World and iSeries Devcon) that have re-ignited my passion and combined with meeting a bunch of terrific IT Peeps* has helped me to evolve and shrug off my Legacy AS400 RPG Analyst Programmer skin and emerge blinking as a Modern IBMi Developer.

Well... they will be at the end of 2009!

For some very strange reason, IBM have decided to kill the ILE RPG Programmer certification. As we all know, being an RPG Programmer is a rare skill set nowadays... and it's becoming rarer. I kind of feel guilty for never standing up and doing the certification. But then again, as I'm typing that I'm also thinking that I actually dont want a little plaque in my dilbertesque cubicle announcing to the world that I know how to do my job: I have a job therefore I know how to do it.

Would the aforementioned little plaque make me feel loftier than my sans-plaque peers? Maybe, just maybe  ;)

Its IBM i running on IBM Power systems ( think Microsoft Windows Server running on Dell Poweredge Hardware ) but that's a bit of a mouthful so we simply say the IBMi.

After coming back from the last i-Developers convention I was feeling excited about all the fantastic things that this machine is capable of. The IBM Power System has incredibly bullet proof hardware and combined with the IBMi operating system it's just a totally integrated, incredibly resilient and easy to use Business Server for the new millennium. It's totally Internet friendly and everyone agrees IBMi is arguably the most secure server OS on the market today. It pumps out websites, emails, spreadsheet, full windows integration and even totally supports the old green screen applications from the 80/90s.

A fantastic bit of kit thats evolved incredibly from it's early B10 models 20 years ago.

But there is one problem with the IBMi - and its a big one!

I'm embarrassed to say that the problem is us IBMi Developers - or to be more accurate its the AS400 Developers. Many developers working on the modern machine and operating system are old school programmers who have evolved up from the early days of the AS400 (and it's earlier iterations the System/3x). It's the blinkered view of many IBMi developers who are in the 'I've always called it an AS400 so why change it now" mindset.

A depressingly vocal community out there still thinks of it as an old green-screen AS400, it's time we get up and say"no more" to the dusty old farts that insist on degrading the IBMi and trying to relegate it to the annals of history.

These are the same faceless people who own 60inch LCD TVs and use duct tape to make a small 18inch window and turn the colors down to black and white.

• You don't refer to your Windows7 Laptop as a DOS PC do you?
• So why take a modern Power System running IBM i  and then refer to it as an old fashioned AS/400

The IBMi brand needs a little loving...

Never seen so many grey haired developers in one hotel   ;)

On a serious note - Some terrific speakers and I was impressed by the general knowledge of all the presenters. I can honestly say I never got bored for one moment and good presentation style kept my attention for all 4 days. Joe Pluta in particular is an amusing guy with some strong opinions, and very funny to listen to.

It's nice to listen to i-people who are as obviously enthusiastic about the i as i am... see what I did there?

Hot on the heels of last weeks training course at RPGWORLD in Las Vegas (Vegas Baby!! Wow what a town... but that's another story) I'm at my desk enthused over all the new things that I've managed to retain in my brain-box.

<RANT MODE=ON>

It was certainly a wake up call, to see how the IBM Power i system is so poorly marketed by IBM: It seems that a large portion of the IBM i community, or should I say AS/400 community, remain skeptical about the machines future. Sadly, this is seen in the confusing system re-branding exercises, leaving us wandering what the machine is going to be called next week.

This fantastic RPG language is slowly evolving into such a powerful tool - some of the new RPG4 coding techniques simply blew me away - and yet IBM are still not seen to be advertising or promoting this fantastic machine.

</RANT>

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in the least discouraged and firmly believe the IBM Power i has a terrific future ahead of it. The name change confusion simply clouds the waters.

As I drag myself, kicking and screaming, out of the green-on-black middle ages and into the sunny clear skies of 21st century web enabled coding, I find myself seriously confused about what tools I should use to write this new fangled code. There are so many out there, some established while I've been floundering around with my SEU Source editor and many new and leading edge applications just to confuse things further: WDSC? Rdi? Code400? Eclipse? Websphere? Mocha? Frontpage? and many many more acronyms and weird and wonderful names spring to mind.

Recently, I've tried a few but it was the efforts of Mihael (the guy developing the wonderful RPG/Next-Generation application) that has finally inspired me to invest some time and figure out what its all about.

As it seems to be one of the most common, my IDE of choice is.... drum roll please... yes IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment... yes thats just a complicated way of saying 'Code Editor'... anyway... *cough*... it's ECLIPSE!

Only ten years late, I'm finally getting involved with some BizTalk Web Services from the AS400 (sorry IBM i - *cough*). Fantastically exciting stuff after my time in the AS400/Web Wilderness and not getting my hands really deep into any techie goo. BizTalk sounds functionally similar to MQ Series so far, but getting my hands into some new Web Services, XML and BizTalk is thrilling.

Streaming data from a manufacturing production line straight to a website... oooh the excitement!! And I'm not even being sarcastic.  :)

I'm very excited about the RPG World conference in a few weeks...

RPG World at Monte Carlo Resort & Casino (in Vegas) - May 6 to 9, 2009

I'm booked and absolutely cant wait to get there.... This conference, event, lesson, course (whatever your want to call it) already looks to be covering every aspect of the IBM Power i that I'm sketchy on, or want to learn more about. It's already got some of the 400 worlds best known names in attendance and looks to be a great technical and social event. Fantastico!

If you're going - please drop me an email or just look for the big pony tailed English Geezer that looks vaguely like Penn walking around with an inane grin on his face  ;) 

To Find out more - check out the Facebook Event

OK, so just what the heck DO we call the AS400 nowadays?

On a few blogs and forums this topic is frequently raising its head. It seems to be a bone of contention with virtually every IBM 'thingie' System developer out there.

Personally, I'm having a tough job getting away from calling it 'The 400'. The Application System/400 was born hot on the tails of the System/38. Bit of a boring name for such a great computer server, but Hey - it was easily shortened to the AS400 and the name made sense!