About IBM IDE : IBM BOB
IBM Project BOB - the modern, streamlined, developer‑friendly IDE that’s quickly becoming the fan favorite in the IBM i community. If RDi is the heavyweight champion and VS Code is the agile newcomer, Project BOB is the cool, confident disruptor that shows up with a grin and says, “Move over… I’ve got this.”
Project BOB is built with one mission:
Make IBM i development fast, intuitive, and genuinely enjoyable.
It brings together the best parts of modern editing, a clean UI, smart code handling, lightning‑fast navigation, and blends them with IBM i‑specific features that feel like they were designed by someone who actually writes RPG for a living. Because they were.
With Project BOB, you get:
* a crisp, modern editor that feels instantly familiar
* intelligent RPG and CL tooling without the bloat
* seamless IBM i connectivity
* a workflow that stays out of your way and lets you code
* a development experience that’s refreshingly simple and surprisingly powerful
In this lesson, we’ll explore why Project BOB has earned its reputation as “the best IDE” for many IBM i developers, how it fits into a modern workflow, and what makes it such a joy to use. Whether you’re maintaining legacy code or building something brand new, BOB gives you a clean, fast, and focused environment that helps you get the job done with less friction and more flow.
Let’s dive in and meet the IDE that might just become your new favorite place to write code.
Module Content
MODULE 5
IBM Project BOB - the modern, streamlined, developer‑friendly IDE that’s quickly becoming the fan favorite in the IBM i community. If RDi is the heavyweight champion and VS Code is the agile newcomer, Project BOB is the cool, confident disruptor that shows up with a grin and says, “Move over… I’ve got this.” Project BOB is built with one mission: Make IBM i development fast, intuitive, and genuinely enjoyable. It brings together the best parts of modern editing, a clean UI, smart code handling, lightning‑fast navigation, and blends them with IBM i‑specific features that feel like they were designed by someone who actually writes RPG for a living. Because they were. With Project BOB, you get: * a crisp, modern editor that feels instantly familiar * intelligent RPG and CL tooling without the bloat * seamless IBM i connectivity * a workflow that stays out of your way and lets you code * a development experience that’s refreshingly simple and surprisingly powerful In this lesson, we’ll explore why Project BOB has earned its reputation as “the best IDE” for many IBM i developers, how it fits into a modern workflow, and what makes it such a joy to use. Whether you’re maintaining legacy code or building something brand new, BOB gives you a clean, fast, and focused environment that helps you get the job done with less friction and more flow. Let’s dive in and meet the IDE that might just become your new favorite place to write code.
IBM Project BOB
Free For All
Project Bob is IBM's new AI-powered tool aimed at shaking up how we develop and modernize software, with a strong nod to us in the IBM i world. Think of it as your smart sidekick that understands your code, helps refactor legacy stuff, and speeds up the whole process without you having to sweat the small details. In this quick lesson, we will break down what Project Bob is, its key features, and why it matters for IBM i programmers working with RPG, CL, and the like. Let us dive in and see how this could fit into your toolkit.
Today, we are meeting the new IBM AI tool called Project Bob, designed to help with code modernization on your IBM i system. In this video, I will walk you through the installation process, show you how to connect it to your IBM i box, and demonstrate its power by refactoring some legacy RPG code from the 1990s into clean, modern free-format RPGLE with subprocedures and best practices applied. If you are dealing with old fixed-format programs that need an update, Project Bob acts like a smart assistant, analyzing your codebase, suggesting improvements, and generating refactored versions complete with comments and structured logic. It is built on a VS Code-like interface, making it familiar for devs already using extensions like Code for IBM i. Stick around as we explore how this AI can save you time on large-scale modernization projects, whether you are a beginner getting started with RPG or an experienced pro optimizing your IBM i apps.
Today we’re diving into something seriously exciting for anyone working with IBM i or AS/400 systems: IBM’s Project Bob, an AI-driven powerhouse designed to analyze and document those ancient, mysterious RPG source codes. You know the ones dusty fixed‑format RPG III programs from the 90s, packed with logic but completely lacking comments. I’ll be firing up Bob, feeding it some RPG, and letting the AI work its magic with instant analysis, smart documentation, clear explanations, and even modernization suggestions. No more guessing what that old subroutine does - Bob makes it crystal clear. Stick around, because this could transform the way you handle legacy code. Let’s get documenting.
Using BOB
Free For All
In this video, discover how IBM BOB, the powerful AI-powered development assistant from IBM, revolutionizes IBM i development workflow by automatically fixing and standardizing Rules.mk files across all folders in your project. Tired of manually tweaking makefile-style Rules.mk files in every subdirectory? Spending hours hunting down inconsistencies, missing dependencies, incorrect compile parameters, or outdated paths in large IBM i projects? IBM BOB steps in as your intelligent coding partner to handle it all!
Update all RPGLE and SQLRPGLE code in this repository to add standardized comments in this format: - Triple-slash documentation style for better IDE integration - Clear feature list for quick understanding - Comprehensive program purpose description - use '-' as the separator character
I want BOB to work as efficiently as possible for our team of RPGLE and SQL programmers - please make modes and skills and agents, or whatever, for this XYZ project, generate coding standards and store in MD files for the entire XYZ project.
Join me as I (almost) in real-time ask BOB to fix the source code comments in my public GitHub repository.
Importing DDS PF and converting to SQL TABLES is simple using BOB. Here is the magical phrase : "convert all .PF to SQL .table and rename according to 'code for ibm-i' naming format using the description from the %METADATA. Once renamed - remove the %METADATA"
Welcome to this lesson in our CODE for IBM i series, where we take our friendly neighborhood coding companion, BOB, and nudge him ever closer to becoming the RPG expert we wish every junior dev could be. Today, we’re tackling a deceptively simple but wildly important modernization skill: Renaming your source members using %METADATA to my preferred IBM i code‑naming standard of OBJECT-DESCRIPTION.type
IBM BOB - Solving Issues in Realtime
Free For All
Welcome to today’s session — which, fun fact, did not go the way I planned. What started as a simple lesson quietly spiraled into a full‑blown system emergency, then morphed again into a real‑time problem‑solving adventure. At one point the IBM i system was locking up, teetering on the edge of a crash, and I just kept the camera rolling. I honestly thought I’d delete the whole recording… but then it hit me: someone out there might run into the exact same issue. And if watching me troubleshoot it live helps even one person, then it’s worth sharing. In the middle of the chaos, I even used BOB to auto‑generate a CL script that wiped out a mountain of log files in an IFS directory — which was unexpectedly awesome. And yes, there were many, many swear words. All safely edited out for viewer well‑being. So buckle up — this is real‑world IBM i problem resolution, captured as it happened.
After yesterday’s… let’s call them spectacularly disastrous abnormal ends, crashes, and near‑nuclear meltdowns triggered by IBM BOB failing to communicate cleanly with my IBM i system, today we’re taking a calmer, more controlled approach. Our mission: tweak the CLRBOBLOG command, run it on the system, and clear out all those nasty Java dump log files that were clogging up the IFS. If all goes well, we’ll bring the system back down to a healthy ~30% disk utilization — exactly where it should be. While digging through the wreckage, Java 17 started looking very suspicious… so the next steps are uninstalling it, testing again, and maybe even installing the latest Java version. Perfect material for a follow‑up video.
“Alright folks, welcome back. Today’s session picks up right where the chaos left off. We finally tore Java 17 out of our IBM i system — gone, erased, banished to the shadow realm — and that means it’s time to fire up the IBM BOB build using Code for IBM i once again. Naturally, nothing ever behaves on the first try. A couple of sneaky little RULES.MK troublemakers popped their heads up, but we hunted them down, patched them up, and then — BOOM — clean compile. Beautiful. But the real victory lap? No more Java log files. Not a single one. The system is quiet, clean, and behaving like it actually likes us again. Looks like this chapter of the saga is finally wrapped up. Huzzah.