System iNetwork

Just a quick response to the question "are we developing new apps on the i, or just maintaining...?"

Having just returned from the iSeries DevCon event in Orlando, I can tell you that new development (Java running on webspere on the i)is alive and well on the i. It may very well still use RPG for business logic and/or data access, but the thought that it is only maintenance is far from true.

In our case, the word "modernization" should also not be confused with maintenance. We are re-working data models, using new languages and data access methods and overall rebuilding our applications as a part of "modernization".

Great platform, improving tools, hopefully bright future!!

Chris -

Isn't it obvious?

IBM needs to generate work for the 100,000 Global Services employees that they will soon have in India.

Will the last American programmer turn out the lights?

I will say again. If you're using an application every day of the week, I don't care how old the code is, it isn't "legacy."

That's called your production workload.

Now, show me some box that's accessed once or so a year for some historical data query...that's legacy.

Someone once said (ok lots of folks) that we'd be done using C or any other language but Java by now. How well has that worked out? Heck I just spoke with a Cobol developer the other day.

- Kevin

Very interesting.

Regarding the final question - "are most IBM i/System i shops actively developing new applications to run on IBM i . . . or is it more about modernization and maintenance?"...

In our experiencem, all of the above. We work with a lot of System i customers, providing contract programming services, and we see a range of activity.

-Some shops are actively developing new i applications, but they typically dovetail in with existing i applications
-Some customers are only interested in maintaining what they have, with the occasional added report, inquiry, data feed, etc.
-Some clients are moving forward with modernization, writing PHP front ends, etc.

Regardless of how IBM may or may not be positioning i on the Power System, RPG based application development seems to be alive and well in the trenches.

I attended the Power System roadshow in Orange County, CA and did not detect a spinning away from the i platform by those presenting. Its a bit cynical to lay it to IBM's need to keep its people busy.....the increased competitiveness of our recessionary economy will drive plenty of new work on the i platform. Moreover, the challenge ahead is to learn how to best leverage the strengths of each operating system and not fall into the trap of becoming an opsys bigot that cannot see beyond his own platform's nose.

Well, I may be biased, but I see lots of new PHP development along side RPG and COBOL code running on the IBM i. It is nice to see passion from the community when developing new applications. I continue to see companies insistent upon leaving certain applications in the green screen while strategically taking other applications to the web and web services. Plus the integration of existing open source PHP applications and classes running on the IBM i gives another good reason to consider the longevity.

I am also seeing new developers coming to the IBM i. "Legacy" PHP developers who are intrigued by this enterprise class computer that seems to be all about business. Yes, some of these developers started out as hobbyists. Just as some of the best RPG developers started out in accounting and keypunch! But we can't diminish their value with rhetoric. Rather, encouragement is in order to help the next generation flourish.



These newbies like the idea that it runs and runs. Initially, they are concerned about not having as much freedom over the box as they do a Linux OS. But soon they realize that they just don't need it in order to do focus on the task at hand. Fundamentally that has been what this box and RPG have been about for many years... "Get-r-done!" When embraced properly, the new PHP developer and the RPG developer start to trade ideas. The cross-pollination of skills can be quite contagious. But there has to be an environment that is conducive to seeing this thrive and not one of hostility toward either the RPG or PHP programmers.



What frustrates me are people who insist that applications be 100% portable or ubiquitous. If you are a software company, that makes sense. But if you are not, you are only sugar coating your desire to migrate off platform. Data Queues and Job Descriptions made this computer what it is today. These features should be celebrated! What's wrong with a library list? I say more systems should adopt that concept rather than forcing me to give it up! If we continue to disregard the hallmarks that made this platform unique, we give up significant portion of the value proposition and throw in the towel.



My $.02



Mike

IBM i supports a collection of languages - RPG, PHP, Java, COBOL, CL, SQL procedures, C - none of which interop with each other very well. Compare this to MSFT, where you have one .NET framework and two languages, C# and VB, which have a many features in common and can be used interchangeably.

I am working on a V5R3 system. Using SQL in V5R3 RPG requires a lot of extra work making sure your procedure variables are not the same as variables in other procedures, having to lookup the exact sql code for "row not found" and "duplicate record on insert".

There are so many improvements that could be made to the programming and runtime aspect of the system - decent error handling in COBOL and SQL procedures, support for the sql result set data type in RPG and CL, srvpgm reflection ( would eliminate the need for procedure prototypes and /copy in RPG ). These are just a few examples.

IBM is not investing in languages, frameworks and operating systems. I guess the consulting and software application part of the business will continue to thrive. But if the power systems group goes the way of Sun microsystems, I would not be surprised.

I have 20+ years working on the system i linage and we currently have several Linux partitions running various web applications on the system i in our shop. We are developing in java for many of our new applications, although we still do some new RPG development. However, we also are using both to take advantage of their strengths.

Does IBM want IBM i customers to stop developing new application workloads for IBM i? IBM is afraid to take a bold stand and truly acknowledge and promote the benefits of the OS. So, my opinion is yes. IBM would really like to shed the archaic image of the system i by having their customers develop applications using newer languages. But they can’t come out to say this as it would offend too many faithful System i RPG followers.

One of the major problems is the lack of package software applications available for i shops. They pretty much have to develop existing applications or go a MS platform; however, having the Linux partition available does offer another alternative.

While I have made my living on i and I still think it is the best OS, it is obvious to me that IBM is going to eventually eliminate i. They have already eliminated the hardware. Now, all that's left is to eliminate the software. They can't do that yet because of existing customers, but they will eventually. It does not make cent$ to keep it. Why split your resources between 3 power based platforms instead of 2 (I am speaking from a corporate/executive/bottom line perspective). Why maintain DB2, app servers... for 3 platforms, instead of just 2. It is user applications that really make or break a "system". And, no executive cares what OS or hardware it runs on.

are most IBM i/System i shops actively developing new applications to run on IBM i...

Who knows about most shops? But my company is pursuing an ambitious Web application development plan using RPG for back-end servers with browser clients (HTML, JavaScript, and CSS).

My current project is a Web portal that provides shared infrastructure and utilities for future applications that will run within it. The Portal package itself uses an IBM i database of about 40 tables. In the past two weeks I've cranked out about 28 new database maintenance programs.

That's just touching the surface. As I said before, we have an ambitious development plan for a broad range of products.