Talsco Weekly: When is the last time you attended an IBM i user group meeting?

Welcome to another edition of Talsco Weekly

Learning: Best Resources to learn Node.js.
AI: The Regulation of AI Use Cases.
Training: When is the last time you attended an IBM i user group meeting?
RPG: RPG Use Is Skyrocketing.

Learning

Best Resources to learn Node js This post on Reddit caught my eye. RPG Developers: What would you do if your manager gave you a project and required you to use either Node.js or Python? If you picked Node.js, here is a list of resources to get you started.

AI

The Regulation of AI Use Cases "AI is at the forefront of people's minds, with organizations scrambling to figure out how to take advantage of the latest developments, and governments are eyeing the work being done, technology companies are cautious about where it may lead us." The primary concern: Can regulation be used to keep pace with the developments? With any new technology, there can be a great deal of concern as to how it will impact society, let alone any given market. AI is one of those technologies. This article touches on the ethics behind the use of AI and is an important read for everyone.

Training

When is the last time you attended an IBM i user group meeting? If your answer is "more than three years ago" then you are missing out. What has taken place in the IBM i and Power Systems communities over the course of the last several years is incredible. A transition is taking place.

IT leaders, business users, and executives are realizing that, in many cases, modernizing and web-enabling RPG-based business applications offer the best ROI, without causing business disruption.

Did you know that there are RPG developers who use modern RPG, Javascript, Node.js, REST, and Typescript to create robust, fully-featured, browser-based business applications? We work with companies that leverage the IBM i platform all over the US doing just this. Here is an example of the requirements we routinely see:

7 or more years of IBM i (AS400), RPG Full Life Cycle development experience in a RPG, ILE, Free Form, SQL, and RDi
Experience with technologies such as XML, Javascript, and Node.js is highly desired
Experience with JSON, RESTful, API, and web services
Curiosity and a desire to do new things is required for this role

As the saying goes:

You don't know what you don't know.

You might be asking, "How can I get that experience if my company is not giving me the chance to use any of these tools or languages?" Answer: Find a way to get to training. There are any number of IBM i user groups located throughout the United States. In fact, one of the biggest, and most attended IBM i User Group is the WMCPA located in Wisconsin. It routinely attracts IBM i Developers from around the country. This year, the spring conference is scheduled for Tuesday, March 14 through Thursday, March 16th, 2023. You can find all the details here and the speaker list here.

RPG

RPG Use Is Skyrocketing "RPG has always been the number one development language on IBM i." "But as open source languages like PHP and Java spread on IBM i, some speculated that RPG’s popularity would begin to slip." Actually, the opposite has happened. "According to Fortra’s most recent IBM i Marketplace Survey Results report. The usage of RPG has "skyrocketed."" So, much for people saying that RPG is going away. From the period of 2015 to 2020, RPG was used by developers 84% to 89% of the time. In 2022, RPG was chosen 93% of the time. Why is there a renewed love for RPG?

"People have worried that RPG was going to fade away, but IBM’s modernization of the language has helped it become a viable language into the future.”

The versatility of RPG.

“It has the ability to call services, integrate open source, SQL and other modern techniques,” the company writes. “Organizations are using modern, modular, free format RPG for new development, and they are pairing this with other languages, which is evident in the number of languages that have significant usage.”

Pairing RPG with Open Source Technologies. It's clear that IBM has been working hard to enable the IBM i platform to be anything you want it to be. The community's use of a variety of languages (SQL, Java, Javascript, PHP, Phyton, Node.js) is key. "Languages by themselves are important, but what’s more important is how languages come together with other tools that developers need to create modern applications." The reality is if you want to write modern applications, you have to use modern tools and that goes for RPG. If you are writing in fixed format RPG, that is not going to cut it anymore.

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If you are an RPG programmer looking to explore opportunities or a client who is looking for a talented IBM i professional, please contact us. We look forward to assisting you.

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