COMMON POWERUp 2024

With each new release of the IBM i operating system and with Technology Refreshes, IBM has given us some new features in RPG. This session tells you about the new and exciting features of RPG and how you might like to use each feature in your own applications.

Learning Objectives:
1. IBM's strategy for releasing new RPG features
2. The new features available recently
3. What I find exciting about them

Getting started with native source in Git isn't that hard and there are multiple development tools but what about getting your source changes to the IBM i? What about those special IBM I dependencies that need to be managed? We'll look at what a Build is and how the IBM i has different requirements then other platforms and how we can meet those requirements. We'll also discuss the open source tools that you can use to set up a Build for native source and how to automate it.

Learning Objectives:

One of the challenges of managing IBM i source with Git is we don't want to Build ALL of our objects for a few changes like a Java project. We want just the changes specific to our project. How do we get JUST those changes and what impact does that have on branch management, merging and conflicts? I thought Git made concurrent development easier, why is this SO HARD?

Now that we at Arcad have been providing Git integration for a number of years we have experience on why a rebase or a fetch from master can have unintended consequences. Well what do we DO with stale branches that conflict with master if we can't fetch? Ho can we just avoid a conflict or resolve it with the least pain?

Learning Objectives:
1, Recognize how IBM i source and business requirements require different branch management.
2. Best workflow for IBM i shops with concurrent development
3. Most efficient way to resolve or avoid merge conflicts

REST APIs have become a major part of business programming. We live in a world where virtually everything is connected to the Internet, and REST APIs are how they communicate with each other. In this session, you will learn how to call (or "consume") REST APIs from good ol' RPG. In addition to showing you the basics of how APIs work, this session explains how to use several free tools to consume them. The tools will be compared so that you can determine which one would work best for you.

Learning Objectives:
1. Understand why/when REST APIs are used.
2. Understand how REST APIs work.
3. Preview Calling REST APIs from RPG with several free tools.

VS Code for IBM i is a powerful IDE that enables developers to quickly and efficiently build, and deploy applications for the IBM i platform. It includes a powerful code editor that provides syntax highlighting, code completion, and code refactoring. It also includes integration with IBM i’s database and security features, making it easier to develop secure applications. It also includes an integrated debugger.
In this session we will highlight some of the major components and discuss how it can be used for everyday development.

Learning Objectives:

Security improvements continue to be high priority to help mitigate vulnerabilities. Come see the various security related features included with IBM i that you can use to help improve the health of your environment.

Learning Objectives:
Discuss new enhancements in IBM i 7.4 and 7.5 related to improved security by default, system values, password levels, TLS 1.3, Authority Collection, Digital Certificate Manager, SST Profiles, and more.

We no longer live in a world where we have one system of record that is used for all business functions. IT is an everchanging blend of tools, applications, and platforms. Integration is top of mind for most businesses. If there is one common way to link all these systems, it is an API layer. Your IBM i should speak the language of APIs, both consuming and hosting. In this session, let’s look at the big picture with regards to APIs and IBM i.

Learning Objectives:
• Importance of APIs in modern architecture
• Common API integration needs
• Replacing legacy interfaces_
• Elements of a successful API implementation

Are you a programmer who is now responsible for the administration of your IBM i system? Do you know what you need to successfully manage the system? What commands do I need to know? In this session, we will cover the basics of System Administration that you need to know to manage your IBM i. Learn what you need to know to do the daily care and feeding of your system.

Learning Objectives:
1) Understand how to check your system messages to know that everything is ok.
2) Make sure that you are saving the right stuff.
3) Basics of security
4) What are PTFs, and how to manage PTFs

One of the coolest new features in ILE RPG is the ability to overload your prototypes! With overloading, you can accept differing parameter types while keeping the same routine name. Overloading can be used with programs, but the biggest value comes when using it with subprocedures.

Learning Objectives:
- What is overloading? Why use it?
- Technical details of parameters, candidates, etc
- Full examples you can use yourself

AI can be used in many different ways, from creating robots to helping with medical diagnoses. From automating mundane tasks to improving decision making and predictive analytics.  

AI can also be used to automate mundane tasks, such as data entry or customer service.

See how AI can help businesses save time and money, as well as improve customer service.

I know, I know... we don't need another Weather Application. This is a fun session where I can show you how to put the pieces together, using an API, JSON_TABLE function, RPG, PHP into a store procedure. This will give you ideas on things you can do to impress your users and boss!

Learning Objectives:
1. Internalize how API"s can be used in your shop.
2. Understand how easily these pieces fit together.

For many users getting started with the RDi debugger is intimidating. In this short session, we'll help the attendee understand the power of the debugger and feel comfortable with the features of the tool!

Learning Objectives:
1. Letting go of the 5250 debugger
2. Getting started with RDi debugging
3. Batch and interactive debugging
4. Service Entry Points (SEP)
5. How to debug different type of programs
6. Understand break-points and Monitor Expressions
7. Tips and Tricks!

Simon will explain how building SQL Views should become a part of your development strategy. He will give examples of the common ways he builds and uses Views to make his own and that of his team easier and simpler. Why do the hard work yourself when something else can do it for you?

Learning Objectives:
1. Why use Views
2. How to create a View
3. Deformalize your data for easy access
4. Create new derived & calculated data within the View

The best way to protect your investment in the IBM i is by transforming your applications into a "Next Generation" architecture. This session demonstrates how RDi accelerates this process and provides an agile approach to modernizing/refactoring RPG Code

Learning Objectives:
Best Practices and examples for the following will be covered:
1) How to use the refactoring capabilities of RDi
2) Moving from Fixed to Free Format RPG
3) How to extract business logic into procedures using RDi
4) Implementing a Database Abstraction Layer"

The tech ecosystem has been changing drastically, and there are some technologies that are disrupting the way developers are expected to operate. For instance, we're seeing the VSCode ecosystem grow, we're seeing AI do amazing things, and we have more open source CI/CD options than ever before.

What does all this mean? In short, it has caused a strategic shift of focus to developer productivity. That is, how do we enable developers to be productive as possible? Developer Productivity Engineering, or DPE, is the study of how to analyze and improve efficiency for programmers. In this session, get an overview of DPE so that you can apply the concepts within your organization. Doing so will increase efficiency and decrease cost.

Learning Objectives:
Learn what DPE is and discuss how it can be applied in a realistic setting

This session discusses the advantages of using modern techniques in your RPG programs. After a short introduction to modularity in programming; we go step-by-step through the process of replacing called programs with sub-procedure modules and then converting these modules to procedures in a called service program.

Learning Objectives:

• Internalize the benefits of using modular coding practices.
• Understand the steps in coding modular subprocedures and service programs.
• Develop reusable subprocedures and service programs.

Just released! Valence 6.3, the latest incarnation of the popular web and mobile framework for IBM i, includes a browser-based low-code development utility called Nitro App Builder (NAB), through which anyone with a solid understanding of their IBM i database can create dazzling web or mobile apps, including dashboards and data grids with download-to-Excel functionality, all in a matter of minutes! Running entirely on IBM i, the NAB tool can also be used to create intricate file maintenance apps, through which users can adjust content in one or more physical files — you control which fields they can see and/or edit.

All of this can be achieved with no coding, though IBM i developers can easily extend the app's functionality with RPG or SQL code to handle business logic as needed. Advanced programmers comfortable with HTML Living Standard and JavaScript code can take things even further, creating super elaborate data-entry apps that work hand-in-hand with server-side RPG logic through the Valence Portal.
The bottom line: With Valence, whether you're a seasoned RPG developer or a super user with intimate knowledge of your system's physical files, you can crank out highly functional web and mobile apps on IBM i in no time — no prior experience in web or mobile development required. Come to this quick demo session to see the latest release of the Valence framework, and how easy it is to quickly build and deploy such an app on your system.

All of this can be achieved with no coding, though IBM i developers can easily extend the app's functionality with RPG or SQL code to handle business logic as needed. Advanced programmers comfortable with HTML Living Standard and JavaScript code can take things even further, creating super elaborate data-entry apps that work hand-in-hand with server-side RPG logic through the Valence Portal.

The bottom line: With Valence, whether you're a seasoned RPG developer or a super user with intimate knowledge of your system's physical files, you can crank out highly functional web and mobile apps on IBM i in no time — no prior experience in web or mobile development required. Come to this quick demo session to see the latest release of the Valence framework, and how easy it is to quickly build and deploy such an app on your system.

All of this can be achieved with no coding, though IBM i developers can easily extend the app's functionality with RPG or SQL code to handle business logic as needed. Advanced programmers comfortable with HTML Living Standard or JavaScript code can take things even further, creating super elaborate data-entry apps that work hand-in-hand with server-side RPG logic through the Valence Portal.

The bottom line: With Valence, whether you're a seasoned developer or a database-savvy user, you can crank out highly functional web or mobile apps on IBM i in no time — no prior experience in web or mobile development required! Join us in this quick demo session to see this latest release of the Valence framework, and how easy it is to build and deploy such an app on your system.

Do you (or does your manager) doubt the value of refactoring your code into a modular design? This session goes in-depth about how you save time and create higher quality programs by refactoring into small, independent routines. We will discuss how this improves your ability to test and maintain your application over time, saving you tons of time in the long run.

This session is co-presented by expert developer, Scott Klement, and expert tester, Yvonne Enselman to help you see it from both perspectives.

Scott and Yvonne are the coolest people you'll ever meet. If you don't come to this session, you'll be very very sad.

Learning Objectives:
1. How refactoring into a modular design saves you time in maintenance.
2. How refactoring into a modular designed simplifies and expedites the testing process.
3. How much better your life will be.

Two of the most significant features added to ILE RPG recently are the DATA-INTO and DATA-GEN opcodes. The most common use case is to read and/or create JSON files.

Since JSON has become crucial to IBM i businesses, these are must-know features!

Learning Objectives:
1, Learn the basics of the JSON format.
2. Learn about DATA-INTO and how to use it.
3. Learn about DATA-GEN and how to use it.

IoT is a big deal in IT today. Since RPG can call and host REST APIs, you can integrate it with IoT devices. For my first project, I decided to see if I could use RPG's "open" and "close" opcodes to open and close my garage door -- and it worked!

In this session I will show you how I integrated my RPG program with the Raspberry Pi, and talk about how the Raspberry Pi and similar devices can play a big part in the future of business applications.

Learning Objectives:
1. Learn the basic concept of Raspberry Pi (and other single-board computers)
2. Learn why physical computing and IoT are important.
3. Learn about integrating IoT with RPG programs.

The integrated file system has become more integrated into every day processing for many customers over the years. The other integrated file system sessions discuss technical details of what it is and the different functional support provided. This session will discuss real life scenarios of file system usage and some common problems experienced by customers.

Learning Objectives:
Understand some of the common problems experienced with the file systems and solutions to those problems

APIs allow IBM i to connect with other systems safely and securely, using the languages you already know. You will feel empowered to provide and consume APIs with the many examples given here, in RPG, PHP, Python, and Node.js (javascript), along with secure techniques and free tools that make API development easier.

Learning Objectives:
1. Understand basics of APIs and why they are helpful and secure
2. Learn several RPG techniques to create and call APIs
3. Learn several open source language ways to create and call APIs, using PHP, Python, and Node.js

Open source delivers new interfaces and functionality for your IBM i applications—and broadens the talent pool for your development team. Python, PHP, and Node.js are among the most popular open source tools on IBM i, for good reason. Combined with today’s ODBC database connectivity, API standards, and RPG/ COBOL integration, they are a powerful way to extend traditional applications to the web, mobile devices, and APIs.

Join Alan Seiden to learn his favorite tips for making your open source stack as reliable as your traditional IBM i applications. He’ll share ways to ensure smooth operation of
1. Python, PHP, Node.js
2. ODBC
3. Apache
4. Connections to RPG and COBOL
5. And how to manage the rapid pace of updates!

Learning Objectives:
1. Tips from the trenches and managing and using open source
2. Best practices for the various languages
3. How to use them in practice and get speed and security

We will learn and explore how you can go from record level access to embedded sql and from that how can you streamline your programming process with embedded sql. How to handle sql exceptions. And finally, how can you leverage SQL to replace your current record level access.

Learning Objectives:
Overview of embedding sql in your RPG programs. How to streamline sql procedures with the use of a SQL utility service program. how to modernize your current record level access to use embedded sql

We all come from different backgrounds. Some of us might have heard or lived under the mindset of “Failure is not an option” or “You have to keep pushing to reach your goals” and that was the only way we knew to strive for excellence. While this session will help you hit the same goals but, give you tools to avoid the burnout that many of us failed to avoid.