Talsco Weekly: Low-Code and AI: Balancing the Risks and Rewards

Welcome to another edition of Talsco Weekly

IBM i Briefs: ALL400s Survey: Tells interesting insights about the IBM i community. IBM Expands Relationship with AWS to Bring AI Solutions to the Enterprise.
AI: Low-Code and AI: Balancing the Risks and Rewards.
Development: Node.js Update.

IBM i Briefs

ALL400s Survey: Tells interesting insights about the IBM i community The ALL400s survey helps shed light on a number of pressing questions in the IBM i market.

What is the most popular development tool in the IBM i community?
What technology exists in nearly every shop?
What BI tools are in use?
And what activities are sitting in the IT backlogs of IBM i shops?

These are just some of the questions that ALL400s answered with the latest edition of its IBM i community survey. Everyone owes it to themselves to take a quick read through ITJungle’s breakdown of the ALL400s survey results. There are some things here that surprised me and some things that did not. One point that stands out to me is:

Over 50% of developers are using some form of generative AI tools to help with coding, documentation and testing.

It stands out because large language models such as ChatGPT have not been out that long yet according to the survey results (based on 600 respondents) over half have incorporated it into their daily routine. What stands out to you about the results? IBM Expands Relationship with AWS to Bring AI Solutions to the Enterprise “IBM announced an expansion of its relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help more mutual clients operationalize and derive value from generative artificial intelligence (AI).” What does this mean? The two companies are utilizing generative AI to improve their solutions and services, which can assist clients in rapidly incorporating AI into their business and IT operations. In addition, there is a “commitment to deepening expertise and expanding AWS on watsonx integration.” Like any new technology, the apprehension about AI replacing certain jobs also presents opportunities for job creation.

With this news, IBM Consulting plans to train and skill 10,000 consultants on AWS generative AI services by end of 2024.

AI

Low-Code and AI: Balancing the Risks and Rewards The era of AI has proven that machine learning technologies have a unique and effective capability to streamline processes that alter the ways we live and work. While AI can come across as innocuously useful, its potential goes beyond harmless and enjoyable personalization features. For instance, when our phones start "eavesdropping" on us to display location-specific and "helpful" ads, it prompts discussions on privacy. Recent reports: Mckinsey: new data, intellectual property, and regulatory risks are emerging with generative-AI based coding tools; with increased speed often come security vulnerabilities that can crop up in AI-generated code, putting systems and organizations at risk, creating coding errors, governance vulnerabilities and more. Stanford University found that programmers who accept help from AI tools like Github Copilot produce less secure code than those who write code alone, concluding that while effective in speeding processes, these tools should be viewed with caution In Summary: The key for large enterprises is to strike the right balance between harnessing the potential of AI-assist platforms such as low-code/no-code and safeguarding the integrity and security of their software development endeavors to realize the full potential of these transformative technologies.

Development

Node.js Update There always seems to be something going on in the Node.js world. Apparently, Node.js is 21 now. Well, not really, but it is amazing to see how these languages evolve. Here is the history of Node.js if you are interested. Why Node.js? Javascript is one of the most popular languages in the world. In addition, it is powerful and easy to learn. Node is powerful.

“Node.js uses a non-blocking I/O model and asynchronous programming style. While JavaScript is a single-threaded language, this poses no significant issues for well-behaved Node applications.”

Node.js has been around on the IBM i going back to 2016 and is becoming a go-to choice for IBM i shops that are looking to extend the reach of their IBM i applications through modernization or integration. VSCode: What is all the buzz about? RDi (and WDSc before that) for a long time has been the go-to code editor on the IBM i, but VS Code is making it’s mark. For those who remember, Websphere Development Studio Client transitioned to RDi back in 2010.

“WebSphere Development Studio Client Advanced Edition 7.0 (WDSc AE) and hello Rational Development for i 6.1. It’s not like WDSc just disappears. IBM will support those products until the spring of 2010."

VS Code, as far as I can tell, made it’s emergence into the IBM i market back in 2013 when Surround Technologies:

Shipped a .NET, a Microsoft Visual Studio-based development environment for creating graphical, database-powered apps to run on IBM i and other platforms.

Fast forward to today, when it comes to code editors, there is a lot of conversation around VS Code and the IBM i. There are a number of valuable articles on ITJungle highlighting a number of VS Code and IBM i case studies and details about how various companies are using and/or teaming up to use it. Getting Started with VS Code The Seiden Group has put out a nice VS Code Resource Guide as to how to use it in the IBM i environment. I guess this all gives testimony as to how modern the IBM i is.

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