Planet i

For some reason that just doesn’t have the right ring to it … oh well. None the less, this blog has been listed as number two in The Four Hundred’s “Best i Blog Bets: A Top 10 List” (by Alex Woodie). This seems to be the month for honors and recognition.  

Read the original at midrange.com - In My Humble Opinion.

The Timestamp built-in function came about in V5R1.  It can be expressed with separators (*ISO) or without (*ISO0).    The format of a timestamp field is...

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Read the original at ile rpg programming: tips and techniques.

IBM i had a solid presence at ZendCon, the Zend/PHP conference. IBM itself was a sponsor and staffed a booth (Tim Rowe and Tony Cairns). Here are a few photos from the conference. I’ll post more when I get time.

Read the original at Alan Seiden's PHP and IBM i Resources.

I recently received a question about how to use DB2 with Zend Framework on IBM i. Thomas wrote:

I would like to start with Zend Framework on i5 [IBM i] with Zend Server and ZF’s DB2 database adapter. I got this error message:
Qualified object name SYSCOLUMNS not valid. SQLCODE=-5016

I told Thomas about an improved DB2 adapter, optimized for IBM i, that I’d created in cooperation with Zend. Its usage is explained in my presentation, “From Zero to ZF,” on my Presentations page: http://www.alanseiden.com/presentations/.

Thomas wrote back to say this adapter worked perfectly for him, eliminating the error and improving performance. I believe this DB2 adapter (or something similar) will eventually be included with Zend Framework 2.0, but until then, it works well as a custom adapter.

Read the original at Alan Seiden's PHP and IBM i Resources.

Read the original at Young i Perspectives.

Summer is long gone and fall is fading fast, so what happened to me?  Been deep into a project (pro bono, alas) using LifeRay portal.  LifeRay  is an Open Source Portal which is pretty cool. The Open Source version has a long way to go in some areas (documentation would be a good starting place) but some of the functionality out of the box is great (some needs work).

My application is a servlet and wrapping a servlet in a portlet, sharing data between them, was not s trivial task.  I had a long learning curve and was heading into a deep technical dive on the framework when an epiphany rescued me from heading down a technical rabbit hole.  I simply wrapped the servlet in an iframe and constructed the URL for the iframe using jQuery and portlet  parameters from within the hosting jsp.  LifeRay *has* a portlet iFrame but it has the same limitations as the html iframe: Moving data between the portlet and the html/app within the iframe is near impossible to do without getting pretty hacky….

I was able to get the hacky solution to work OK, although I wished I could handle things a little more elegantly.  I also wanted to host a message board (aka forum) but I had nothing but trouble getting the email functionality to work.  In fact I am still dead in the water on the emails sent to the board reaching the forum posts.

The support at the LifeRay forum is so-so.  Too many dead ends on posts of similar problems and many, many similar problems exist without resolution.  If I were the LifeRay team I’d handle the posts that are most frequent with either a solution or an intelligible FAQ in the Wiki.  As it is, I still have posts that were never completely resolved.

I’ll probably continue to use LifeRay because 1. This pro bono project requires it and 2. It seems to be the best Open Source portal solution I can find.  I am not completely satisfied, but hopefully one day you’ll be reading this blog from within LifeRay and all will be well.

Read the original at Pete's Wordshop.

Well, finally Sam Palmisano is retiring as IBM CEO!  Good riddance!  This man following in his mentor's footsteps (Lou Gerstner) has done absolutely nothing to further IBM as an industry leader and has probably darn near destroyed any vestiges of industry leadership that IBM once may have had.

Under Sam's leadership, he has totally shifted the focus of IBM from hardware and software to consulting.  He has sold off the IBM Printing Division, the PC Division, was involved in eliminating the System i Division of the Systems and Technology Group!  He has been a huge advocate of IBM's ill defined Cloud venture!  His head is in the clouds, but IBM sure as heck can't figure it out.

How is that Amazon, Google, Oracle, Yahoo, Microsoft, and others have operational clouds and IBM is still talking about them? 

Take a close look at his replacement.  While it is interesting and very PC (politically correct) that he is being replaced by a woman, she (Virginia Rometty) is cut from the same cloth as good ole Sam.  She was responsible for integrating Coopers & Lybrand into IBM Global Services.  She was Sr VP Sales and Marketing most recently.  


If anyone has any doubt about the future of IBM i, this pretty much seals its death warrant and close the coffin.  Hell it may close the coffin on the IBM that we once new who helped commercial enterprises figure out and manage computer systems! 

Read the original at Bob Cancilla on IBM i.

I grew up with procedural programming. What does that mean? To me it means I have spent a MAJORITY of my business career delivering value to companies by developing programs that have subroutines and possibly functions and sub procedures. I like to think I have added tremendous value but at the same time I also realize that some of my code has been superseded by newer programs and alternate methods.

But everyone tells me that OO (Object Oriented programming) is where I should be! The “industry” is/has moved to the OO model of development thanks to such powerful languages like Java and C++. Even PHP has an OO model to let me feel like I am playing along. So what should I do? Well, here is my tale on the OO paradigm and I hope this makes some sense to all of you!

As a procedural programmer in the 90’s I heard the “good news” of Java from IBM. I struggled with Java at first and then had some VERY marginal success. I found it cumbersome to try and learn, not because Java was necessarily hard, but because I was trying to absorb too much at one time. Many challenges plagued this old RPG dog like a new language, syntax, structure, environment, etc. I’m not the only one who struggles, even Carnegie Melon dropped OO from their freshman curricula because students were coming up with not nearly enough experience in developing algorithms.

Enter in PHP and the opportunity to learn something new. PHP becomes the ideal language for education and more since it can start you at your level. Think of the PHP landscape as a major expressway with different lanes for more or less experienced drivers. Folks who come to PHP with no programming experience can start with very simple inline code. For those of us who hail from the procedural world we can pick up with functions. And for those who are flying in and out of traffic with a Java or C++ background there is a fully support Object Oriented model to work with.

I have been recommending PHP to many educational institutions and have it on good rumor that the curricula I have been teaching at Moraine Valley Community College will become permanent courses called MIS126 and MIS226. These courses start at procedural PHP and then work up to and through the Object Oriented realm. This is great news as we can now add more PHP developers to the world and demonstrate that PHP is not just a hobbyist language by delivering classes in true academia!

For those who cannot wait, the educational path at Zend offers PHP 1 Foundations for IBM i Programmers and PHP Foundations 2: Higher Structures. The first class takes an RPG programmer from zero to sixty with a full immersion in the functional world of PHP while the second class starts off at functions and whips you up into the object oriented realm.

Even more educational opportunities exist at places like SystemiNetwork where we are about to begin a whole new online sequence for PHP training.

No excuses, get out there and play!

Read the original at Mike's IBM i PHP blog and more....

Recently IBM announced a new category for their Champions program … Power Systems Champions. I was honored to be one of the first community members inducted into the new category. IBM Champions are IT professionals, developers, and educators who lead and mentor others and help them make best use of IBM solutions and services. Get [...]

Read the original at midrange.com - In My Humble Opinion.