iSpeak
Hear from our iSeries experts. Put in your two cents.
March 30, 2006
I Like System i Like Crazy
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet." -- Shakespeare, from Romeo and Juliet.
Yes, a few weeks ago, IBM announced that they were changing the name of our beloved system from iSeries to System i. Actually, if you want to be technical about it, the previous name was IBM eServer iSeries, and the current generation was called IBM eServer iSeries i5. Now, the current generation is IBM System i5, and the server line is called IBM System i.
Our system is a great system, no matter what the name. That's why I put the Shakespeare quote at the beginning of this article. However, System i is a particularly bad choice.
Continue reading "I Like System i Like Crazy"
Posted by on March 30, 2006 at 9:36 PM | Comments (98)
January 12, 2006
From the trenches hits the nail
I am glad to see people responded to my recent From the Trenches article. One person said the article hit the nail on the head. What are we, as customers to do? IBM seems oblivious to what their current, paying customers want from development tools and opportunities. What is the best way to get them to evolve, when a revolution on our part is not possible or desired?
Posted by on January 12, 2006 at 11:44 AM | Comments (9)
September 23, 2005
How "good" is our software? -- A question for IT managers
Here's a surprisingly obvious question that IT managers don't often ask. Why not?
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Posted by on September 23, 2005 at 4:19 PM | Comments (19)
September 16, 2005
The Perception
There's a major schism evident in this blog between those that believe that RPG is a language for traditional programming and those that see it as a capable language for the future. The former perceives RPG as a language for 5250 applications, text-only reports, and batch jobs. It's not hard to understand where they get this perception, since that's 99% of what you see when you look at RPG programs. The other side thinks it's capable of much more, and I fall into that category.
If you read the comments posted to this blog, both in response to Paul Conte's Free Format D-specs are LONG Overdue! and my own It's Time to Improve Our Image, you'll see that the vast majority of arguments boil down to this difference of perception.
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Posted by on September 16, 2005 at 3:04 PM | Comments (116)
September 14, 2005
Are Web services and/or SOA important for iSeries?
SOA (service-oriented architechture) seems to be a big buzzword these days both within IBM and in the general IT press (e.g., Computerworld). From what I've learned so far, I'd describe SOA as an expansion of Web services concepts. Here are my working definitions:
Web services are applications that use a set of XML-based standards (SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, etc.) to communicate. The goal of Web services is to allow platform-neutral, language-neutral communications between applications.
SOA defines each application task or code component as a "service." These services are then joined together (a lego block analogy comes to mind) to build useful applications.
Are these definitions valid? The SOA definition still feels pretty vague to me, and there are certainly far more extensive definitions available.
I'm also wondering to what extent iSeries shops are interested in Web services and SOA? Does anybody have any practical implementation examples to share?
Posted by on September 14, 2005 at 6:05 PM | Comments (7)
July 17, 2005
Love the hype, let's see it work!
It is pretty encouraging to see people outside of IBM being positive on the marketing future for the iSeries. I love the hype! Anything that exposes the iSeries to the world is a good thing. Now we need to be patient and let IBM follow through with their commitment. Let's see it work IBM!
Posted by on July 17, 2005 at 2:05 PM | Comments (6)
July 6, 2005
Top ways to make a development project fail
Have you seen "classic" ways managers or developers cause a software project to fail? Add them to our list.
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Posted by on July 6, 2005 at 4:34 PM | Comments (21)
Where did you get that test data ?
Ok. Time for my irregular rant.
With HIPAA and the new privacy laws in effect, how do we still get away with using production data in our test environment? Well, it's just so quick and easy to do a CPYLIB from production to test... right?
So, you want to know what terrible disease someone has? Just look at the test data! Want to know someone's Social Security number and their DOB and their spouse's name. Just look at the test data!
I am not a fan of encrypting data in our on-line production data files. But I am a big fan of at least scrambling personally identifieable information in our test files.
I have seen cases where even bank account numbers and PIN codes are left un-altered in test data files. That along with medical diagnosis, and blood test results sitting unprotected in test data files is unconscionable and possibly even illegal.
So... Dan, What's the Big Deal? My end users see all that data every day in the production files. Yes... and that is THEIR JOB. Our job is to write, maintain and enhance programs and systems, not to snoop into personal information.
Technicians should have NO access to production data, except when handling a firecall, and then ONLY when all their actions are being fully audited using the OS/400 audit functions.
Please write some scripts to generate test data while scrambling sensitive information.
nuf said for now....
Dan Riehl
Posted by on July 6, 2005 at 2:56 PM | Comments (9)
May 7, 2005
IBM Jobs announcement in Europe.
IBM this week have announced 13,000 job losses throughout Europe. Obviously, there are many contributory factors to this announcement but I sometimes wonder if their advertising campaigns do not help.
Continue reading "IBM Jobs announcement in Europe."
Posted by on May 7, 2005 at 1:00 AM | Comments (22)
May 4, 2005
Free-format D-specs are LONG overdue!
IBM needs to deliver free-format D-specs (and P-specs) for ILE RPG, and SOON!
If we're worried about i5 image and productivity, a top priority should be the application "lingua franca" of the system.
Can you imagine Windows Server and .NET offering a language that still requires fixed-format, positional entries?
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Posted by on May 4, 2005 at 9:14 AM | Comments (91)
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