What will the future hold for the IBM i?

Welcome to another edition of Talsco Weekly.

News: Tech Industry is disrupting banks. IBM i Big Announcements to come.
Career: Developer burnout & Helpful Habits to Learn for RPG Developers.
Development: Many Synon shops are considering a move to RPG free. Website Development: A Different perspective
Hiring: Use automation to solve talent shortages. Implement an employee engagement program.
Trends: Manufacturing is going digital. The Data collected by loT devices might shock you.

News

Apple Card Proves Tech will Disrupt Banking If you have not heard, Apple introduced Apple Card. It's a game changer to banks and traditional credit cards.

"Apple Card is the strongest signal that Tech companies will disrupt the banking and credit card industry. The likes of JP Morgan have incredible R&D budgets, but can they become tech companies before tech companies become banks?"

Why is this important? Technology is disruptive. It's important because disruption is happening all around us. And if companies are not careful they are going to see competition from organizations that traditionally have not been their competitors. Think about it. Apple owns the distribution channel. iTunes. The App Store. This has allowed them to move in and offer a digital credit card because they have a built in customer base. IBM i Announcements Loom, and So Does POWERUp 2019 This is a big year for the IBM i. "IBM is making its next round of IBM i announcements next Tuesday, April 23, via a COMMON webcast." This will be followed by COMMON's conference, POWERUp 2019 in May. There are so many things to be excited about within the IBM i community right now. This article highlights what's to come. IBM abandons Marketing Technology "IBM is getting out of martech. The IT giant announced on Friday that it is offloading its remaining marketing and commerce solutions to private equity firm, Centerbridge Partners L.P, in order to focus on other strategic technologies, including AI, hybrid cloud, SaaS and, in particular, supply chain."

Career

How to Combat Developer Burnout Here is a story about a developer who lost his passion and almost quit. He felt frustrated because he "couldn’t change company culture, and couldn’t influence management". So, he came up with a system to protect himself agains developer burnout. Key habits and things I wish I knew earlier as a developer There are some key takeaways from this article. While not every point outlined will directly apply to the world of RPG Development, many do. As the RPG Developer moves towards open source and starts to leverage languages such as PHP, Python and Node.js most of the habits outlined will prove to be very helpful.

Development

Attention Synon Users: You Can Automate Your Move To RPG Free Form And DevOps "Getting 100 percent automation for the conversion of Synon to RPG Free Form? This may sound like a story that is too good to be true, and while that is often the case, sometimes in life the good story is the true one." A Website is a Car and Not a Book RPG Developers over the past several years have started to get into website development. It's different than web development let alone RPG Development. It requires a different mindset. The question that is often asked is, "What is it about web design that makes it so difficult to understand?" This article will open your eyes to what website development is all about.

Hiring

Automation and the talent challenge in US consumer packaged goods Time for an automation reboot. "We believe that attitude needs to change. A smarter, more flexible and more holistic approach to automation could be a powerful way to address talent challenges." This article is relevant because it highlights that talent shortages exist in virtually every sector of the economy. It's time to get creative on how to attract, train and retain talent. The need to move beyond employee engagement surveys "Employee engagement surveys can be a mixed bag. On one hand, they are a relatively simple and quick way to gauge employee satisfaction. On the other, they can be inaccurate if people feel they cannot speak freely, or if they feel the process is a tick-box exercise." This article highlights a bigger issue as it relates to hiring, retention and skill development. To foster growth in the IBM i community, the following methods should be implemented when possible.

Learning and development: Leverage technology and LMS systems to offer continual learning opportunities for developers to experiment with various technoloiges.
Peer to peer coaching: Develop a mentor program within the organization that will allow for junior developers to be coached by peers from within as well as outside of IT.
Rotating assignments: Doing the same thing day in and day out can lead to burnout and frustration. Give your RPG Developers mini side projects that allow them flex their creative and technical skills.

Open Source

PHP 7.1.28 Released "The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.1.28. This is a security release. All PHP 7.1 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version."

Trends

Industrial IoT solutions for Digital Manufacturing Watch this one minute video on IoT and Digital Manufacturing. It gives a good overview of what "digital" means. Is your company doing this? How much data is generated in one day? Here is a crash course on data. "The exponential growth of data is undisputed, but the numbers behind this explosion - fuelled by IoT and the use of connected devices - are hard to comprehend, particularly when looked at in the context of one day."

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