Talsco Weekly: Upgrade Yourself to be Ready for What's Coming

Welcome to another edition of Talsco Weekly

IBM i Brief: 🔄 IBM Power11 eliminates planned downtime.
Career: ⬆️ Upgrade Yourself: To Be Ready For What’s Coming. IBM i Training Resources.
Development: 🧩 Only an RPG Developer Can Put It All Together. 🛠️ IBM i Low-code brings development to everyone. 🔍 Decoding Base64 ASCII.
Hiring: 🔄 The Succession Planning Imperative: Bridging Your IBM i Skills Gap.
Open Source: 🛠 Tool bridges Git and IBM i development gap.
Future: 🔬 IBM defines pathway to quantum advantage.

IBM i Brief

🔄 IBM Power11 eliminates planned downtime

IBM’s Power11 server, available July 25, tackles the IT maintenance dilemma by delivering zero planned downtime capabilities. Using AI-powered IBM Concert, the system autonomously discovers vulnerabilities and manages updates without interruption.

The “Migrate While Active” with Power Virtual Server

feature enables seamless migration between on-premises and cloud environments while systems remain operational.

Power11 also addresses security concerns with sub-minute ransomware detection via Cyber Vault and quantum-safe encryption to protect against future threats. This resilient infrastructure lets IT teams focus on core business rather than maintenance trade-offs.

Career

⬆️ Upgrade Yourself: To Be Ready For What’s Coming

Upgrade Your RPG Toolkit: Essential Skills For What’s Next

Looking back 10 years ago, do we really think we would be where we are today.

When examining the IBM i platform, many shops encounter virtually the same issues they faced 10, if not 20, years ago.

Why?

Because of backward compatibility.

What does that tell you?

It tells you that the IBM i platform (previously known as AS/400, iSeries, i5) has proven its reliability. While the system “just works,” this doesn’t mean it should remain the same.

The challenge is that many enterprise IT departments have become resource-constrained and complacent.

Rather than addressing modernization needs proactively, they’ve “kicked the can down the road” — postponing critical upgrades and leaving the problems for the future — like the national debt.

But, that is the problem. The lack of proactive modernization has created both a technology gap and a critical skills gap. Without succession planning, organizations face the dual challenge of aging systems and retiring expertise.

It’s time to Upgrade.

While the IBM i platform has proven its reliability and longevity through backward compatibility, this strength has inadvertently created a comfort zone that’s becoming increasingly risky to maintain.

We’re at a critical inflection point where the system’s capabilities have evolved dramatically, but many developers’ skills haven’t kept pace. The IBM i platform itself is thoroughly modern – supporting open source, cloud capabilities, AI integration, and advanced development methodologies. The technology is ready and waiting.

There’s a tremendous opportunity ahead. By investing in learning modern RPG, Git workflows, web services, or open source tools, developers can revitalize their careers while strengthening the platform and community they value.

The businesses running on IBM i deserve the full power of what this platform can deliver. And you, as a developer, deserve to experience the satisfaction of mastering these new capabilities. The path forward is clear – it’s time to upgrade your skills and help the IBM i community thrive in this rapidly evolving technological landscape.

IBM i Training Resources

🎓 IBM Systems Education & Training Showcase: Here is a a comprehensive list of resources for beginners to advanced users covering RPG, SQL, system management and virtually anything that covers IBM i and Power Systems.

👩‍💻 YouTube Tutorials: Free video content from the IBM i and community experts demonstrating practical IBM i skills.

🤝 Mentorship Programs: imPower Technologies offers a turnkey IBM i training system that takes those new to the IBM i platform from A to Z when it comes to modern RPG development and IBM i concepts. When it comes to turnkey IBM i training, there is no second best!!

🌐 Online Learning Platforms: Go4as400.com, Self-paced courses through platforms like Udemy, Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning.

🔄 Community Forums: CODE400, Midrange.com, IBM i References Pages, are just a few places that offer active discussion boards where you can ask questions and share knowledge with peers.

🏙️ In-Person Events: COMMON Navigate 2025 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania offers hands-on workshops, expert-led sessions, and networking opportunities with IBM i professionals from across the industry. As an alternative, consider IBM TechXchange 2025. TechXchange is where it is at, all of IBM and it’s innovation will be on display, including 26+ IBM i focused training sessions.

Development

🧩 Only an RPG Developer Can Put It All Together

AI and even low-code platforms (see below) can help, but RPG Developers are the ones to put the pieces together.

I just had a check in call with an RPG Developer we helped secure a position about a year ago.

Our conversation, quickly touched on how AI can be used in the daily workflow. He said:

“It can be a starting point, and help get you part of the way, but be careful because it will not always get you where you need to go.”

It’s the RPG developer that needs to take it across the finish line, connect the dots, glue and piece it all together so it works. If you rely on AI from end to end, you will likely end up in trouble.

Similar to AI, low-code platforms accelerate development but can’t replace the expertise of skilled developers.

RPG professionals who understand business requirements and technical complexities provide the critical bridge between these tools and successful implementation. This expertise becomes particularly valuable when evaluating the expanding landscape of low-code options available for IBM i environments.

🛠️ IBM i Low-code brings development to everyone

No-code and low-code development platforms are transforming how applications are built, enabling both developers and non-technical users to create custom solutions.

These tools use visual interfaces like drag-and-drop builders to replace traditional coding, significantly reducing development time and costs.

While they offer impressive speed and accessibility benefits, IT teams should still monitor for potential scalability and security challenges.

For IBM i shops, platforms like Profound UI, Presto, and Valence provide modernization paths that preserve existing investments while enabling new web and mobile experiences.

As of 2025 here are some additional low-code platform options to consider:

OutSystems: Enterprise-grade platform for scalable, secure apps with AI-driven development and robust integrations.
Appsmith: Open-source tool for developers to build internal dashboards and tools with JavaScript flexibility.
Microsoft Power Apps: Builds apps within Microsoft ecosystem, leveraging AI Copilot and seamless 365 integrations.
Zoho Creator: User-friendly platform for rapid, secure web/mobile app development with robust integrations.
Appian: Automates complex workflows with drag-and-drop, AI, and cloud-native integrations for enterprises.
Kissflow: Balances no-code ease and low-code flexibility for workflows, forms, and integrations.
Rapid Ext JS (Sencha): Builds data-rich web apps with reusable UI components and Git support.
Supabase: Open-source platform (low-code) with Postgres, APIs, Realtime, and Storage for scalable app development.

🔍 Decoding Base64 ASCII Have you ever been asked how to decode a base64 ASCII string in RPG received from an HTTP response? One might be thinking, well “That’s easy, simply use the relevant SQL function BASE64_DECODE." But then after you write some sample code and after some debugging you realize this function threw a curveball.

Hiring

🔄 The Succession Planning Imperative: Bridging Your IBM i Skills Gap

Has your organization created a plan to address the widening gap between your aging systems and the impending retirement of your experienced staff?

Without proactive succession planning, organizations risk losing both institutional knowledge and the ability to leverage modern platform capabilities that could drive business transformation.

Why Traditional Approaches to IBM i Staffing Fall Short:

The “wait until retirement” trap: Many organizations delay hiring until senior developers announce retirement plans - by then, knowledge transfer becomes rushed and incomplete.
The “same skills” mindset: Seeking exact replacements for retiring staff perpetuates technical debt instead of introducing needed modern skills.

The Talsco Difference: Strategic IBM i Talent Acquisition

At Talsco, we recognize that securing your IBM i future requires more than just filling positions - it demands strategic talent planning that addresses both immediate and long-term needs.

We’re at a critical inflection point where the system’s capabilities have evolved dramatically, but many developers’ skills haven’t kept pace. The IBM i platform itself is thoroughly modern – the technology is ready and waiting.

Our Approach:

Skills-gap analysis: We help identify where your current team excels and where modern skills are needed to leverage the platform’s full potential.
Strategic hiring timelines: We recommend bringing in new talent before critical knowledge walks out the door, enabling proper mentorship and transition.
Modern skillset emphasis: We prioritize candidates who combine RPG fundamentals with modern techniques (free-form RPG, Git, web services, SQL, open source) to revitalize your IBM i environment.
Business-focused developers: We identify professionals who ask the hard questions, pushing both technical and business boundaries to unlock innovation.

Remember what we said earlier: “The IBM i platform has proven its reliability and longevity through backward compatibility,” but this strength becomes a liability without the right talent to move it forward.

Take action, before it's too late.

Open Source

🛠 Tool bridges Git and IBM i development gap

Richard Schoen’s iForGit helps traditional IBM i developers embrace modern version control without abandoning familiar green screens.

The recently updated tool captures code changes from environments like SEU/PDM and syncs them to Git repositories, allowing developers to view version history directly from their green screen interface.

One-click restore functionality eliminates the need to navigate complex Git workflows, making version control accessible to “old school” IBM i programmers.

iForGit

RPG Developers can find more information here.

Future

🔬 IBM defines pathway to quantum advantage

The tech giant, along with startup Pasqal, released a white paper outlining how to validate quantum advantage claims amid industry controversy. IBM expects quantum advantage by 2026, defining it as when “quantum plus classical” outperforms classical computing alone.

What does the quantum advantage really mean?

Quantum advantage occurs when a quantum computer surpasses classical supercomputers in efficiency, accuracy, or cost for specific tasks. It emphasizes practical superiority for real-world applications, unlike quantum supremacy.

IBMs roadmap includes processors like “Loon” and “Nighthawk,” with the “Starling” system expected by 2029. Recently, startups Kipu Quantum and Q-CTRL have already claimed runtime advantages in specific applications.

Ponder This 🤔

Will quantum advantage significantly impact a $50M-$500M company in the near to mid term, or is it too cost-prohibitive, and who will it truly benefit?

Join

Contact us

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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