Using SQL in RPGLE programs is easier than you think. Making the move from RPG native file IO to SQL database IO is really quite straightforward:  Changing from good old READE loops to SQL FOR Loops simply means using the SQL CURSOR function. SQL has a groovy way of referring to what the stuff that

Read More

Twenty years ago… I was typing on a dumb terminal, connected to a great big beige computer called IBM AS/400 with a thick grey Twinax cable. Screens were green on black, text only — or sometimes orange on black if you were posh. The internet was this thing we used to send emails (if you knew

Read More

Modernizing RPG Programs – Learn the RPG History first I had email email from an old work colleague this morning. He was a windows programmer, with limited exposure to RPG, but works in a company that is driven by a huge, old, complex RPG3 application that has changed little over the last decade. He is

Read More

Upgrade old RPG source code — aka refactoring — is a fun past time There are frequent little code snippets that I refactor over and over again. Some look similar but some look very different in modern language style. It’s perhaps worth documenting them in case someone else is trying to figure out alternative ways

Read More

Why are so many IBMi developers still stuck in the same application design thought process they had 20 years ago? Why do so many IBMi developers still refer to IBM-i as AS400 (the old system that we used in the early 1990’s)? Why are some people still writing batch report programs and 5250 green screen enquiries? Evolving

Read More

Last night I was asked what the differences between RPG versions were: RPG3 RPG400 RPGLE: IBM have gone out of their way to make the version naming and releases differences so quirky, dirty and convoluted that I’m not even sure they know what to call the current incarnation of this beautiful programming language. Anyhooo, here’s

Read More

YOUR IBM System is NOT an AS/400 YOUR IBM System is NOT an iSeries IBM stopped making the old AS400 in the 1990’s The iSeries came next and that ran for over ten years The current machine is an IBM Power System. The grandson of the AS400 YOUR IBM System is an IBM POWER SERVER

Read More