Thoughts, free associations, ramblings and rants
2020 will long be remembered as the year the world stood still. However, in our eternal quest to make lemonade from even the worst batch of lemons, we journey on. 2020, it is behind us. Done. Goodbye, Sayonara, Adieu, Adios, Arrivederci, Auf Wiedersehen, Au Revoir, Cheerio… I have always enjoyed walking in the footsteps …
Continue reading “The New York City familiar renews my optimism”
It has been my absolute pleasure this year to present iChime members with a class of IBM i experts and other business professionals, and the depths of specialized knowledge and insights they have shared. Those who’ve attended have told me joining the meetings has well exceeded their expectations. To have access to these industry leaders …
Some 60 IBM i professionals joined for this month’s iChime virtual meeting, availing themselves of a free opportunity to hear Susan Gantner, one of the most recognized speakers in the IBM i community, present “Best Practices of Modern Application Development Using Rational Developer for i (RDi).” Among other things, Susan, discussed the importance of keeping …
Continue reading “Susan Gantner and RDi shine at December’s iChime meeting”
I was surprised to recently encounter a fellow veteran RPG developer who insists on using fixed-format despite all the advantages of the completely revamped, modern-language fully free-form version. For starters, he defended fixed-format for its 1) “easier to read columnar format” and 2) “keeping the senior developers in their comfort zone is important.” All efforts …
Continue reading “The time is NOW to retire the creaky old bones of fixed-format RPG”
This final quarter of 2020 marks 25 years of dedication to development, innovation and service here at Central Park Data Systems. The journey through the infinitely progressive technology landscape has been at times a sprint, over time a marathon, and for sure, in uncertain economic times and times of retrospect quite an interesting stroll. Albeit …
“Congratulations, you’re an IBM Champion!” And so went the email subject line I received in late 2018 for the upcoming calendar year. The email continued, “Hello, and welcome! After reviewing and evaluating your contributions to the IBM technology community over the past 12 months, IBM is happy to announce that you have been selected as …
IBM’s Access Client Solutions (“ACS”) was featured at the July 28th, 2020 meeting of iChime. Special guest Tim Rowe offered a live demonstration of the many features and recent enhancements to this product as well as additions to IBM i services. Amazing! One great example was a quick way to interrogate directory sizes in the …
Continue reading “IBM’s Access Client Solutions highlighted in iChime”
So many thanks to IBM Systems Magazine for their recent review of iChime. You can read the article by clicking on this link – https://ibmsystemsmag.com/Power-Systems/07/2020/Find-Community-at-iChime. When senior editor Claire O’Leary attended our last meeting, she was impressed by the participation and candor of the attendees. This is completely unsurprising to those in the IBM i …
Continue reading “iChime’s community spirit recognized by IBM Systems Magazine”
The group discussion circled around continuing employment in the IBM i marketplace, and how to be best prepared. How business in general is being affected by the pandemic brought a lively conversation. One idea was how this recession is different than others, in that it is more industry specific vs across the board. For example, …
Alan Seiden was our June 24th meeting’s special guest. He started our discussion on the world of open source. A big take away, though no surprise, is the world of ILE is far more than just RPG. He then went on to describe the many other ways developers can adopt open source technologies to quickly …
Continue reading “Open Source integration focus at recent iChime meeting”