Four Hundred Monitor, June 7

June 7, 2023 Jenny Thomas

Artificial intelligence is getting a bad rap these days, and IBM's CEO Arvind Krishna isn't happy about it. In fact, he says the recent reporting that quoted him as saying that IBM could replace 7,800 workers with AI software was incorrect, and his comments were taken out of context. Of course, that doesn't explain why IBM recently paused hiring for "replaceable" roles. You can read more about what Krishna is saying about AI now in our Top Story below. Our Calendar is continuing to grow so be sure to check in about the latest learning opportunities.

(Barron's) IBM's CEO reverses course and now says AI will create more jobs.

(CIO Magazine) Hardware does have a role to play in AI.

(Inside HPC) IBM plans to open its first Europe-based quantum data center next year in Germany.

(CMS Wire) How do you get all the clouds floating around talking to each other? Enter IBM's Hybrid Cloud Mesh.

(Phys.org) Sometimes you have to just take you best guess, which is another thing quantum computers are good at.

(Manta Technologies) Another milestone for Manta, which is celebrating its 29th birthday. But you get the present. Save 20 percent on any course, series, or combination pack. Sale ends July 31.

(Talsco) It's not time to panic about RPG developer retirements, according to this article.

(Seiden Group) Alan Seiden offers his review of the best updates to open source on IBM i, including tips on how to use them.

(COMMON) You may still be recovering from POWERUp 23, but the call for presentations for NAViGATE 2023 is now open. If you have an idea for a session on all aspects of IBM i programming or administration, COMMON would like to hear from you. The CFP closes next Monday, June 12. NAViGATE 2023 will be held October 9-11, 2023, in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

(System i Developer) Our friends at SiD have revealed the next series of Summit Deep Dive Workshops for IBM i developers. Choose from 13 interactive, half-day online workshops with Paul Tuohy, Susan Gantner, Jon Paris, or Mike Pavlak. Cement new skills in SQL, RPG, open source on IBM i, APIs/web services, Db2 for i and more. The Series begins September 19 and runs through October 31.

June 8 – Webinar – Whether you are currently running IBM i on-premise or considering migrating to a cloud-based solution, this webinar "Migrating IBM i from On-Premise to Power Virtual Server: Benefits and Best Practices" will provide valuable insights into the benefits and best practices of migrating to IBM's Power Virtual Server, identifying potential roadblocks.

June 14 – Webinar – Seiden Group technical consultant and COMMON award-winning speaker Patrick Behr will be demonstrating the basics of web services, including HTTP, JSON, and RESTful principles, during this free webinar from OCEAN.

June 20 – Webinar – Over 90 percent of threats reaching user inboxes impersonate individuals or brands to slip past email filters. In this upcoming webinar, Fortra's Email Security experts discuss how machine learning models can help detect and remove email impersonation threats at scale.

June 22 – Webinar – Join ARCAD Software for a 30-minute webinar to see how to easily create coherent test datasets, small enough for rapid test cycles, but large enough to accurately reflect the variety of production data.

July 27-29 – Tustin, California – Join OCEAN for TechCon23, featuring keynote speaker IBM i chief architect Steve Will, plus a CIO summit, expert panel discussion, and outstanding tech and prof dev sessions.

July 18 – Online Workshop – RPG Free Form in a Nutshell. In this free online session, Susan Gantner will explain the syntax of RPG Free-Form code. After a brief refresher on free format logic, she will delve into more recent free-form declarations (i.e. the replacements for H, F, D and P specs) as well as the ability to use as many columns for your RPG logic as you need—starting in column 1 if you want!

September 19 – Online Workshop – Getting to a Modern Database on IBM i, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, covers the design and definition of a modern database and the steps necessary to re-define an existing database with DDL — without having to make any program changes.

September 21 – Online Workshop – RDi Quick Start for PDM Fans, a half day online workshop with Susan Gantner, helps you get started (or re-started) quickly using RDi's new PDM perspective. This simplified interface includes a table that allows you to "work with members" (or objects or libraries) in a form that looks and feels much like PDM — but with many cool added features.

September 26 – Online Workshop – Data Structures & Arrays for Today's RPG Apps, a half day online workshop with Jon Paris, covers Nested Data Structures, Multi-Dimensional Arrays, Dynamic Arrays, Templates, Modern Indicator usage, Data Structure I/O, and more.

September 28 – Online Workshop – Intro to Open Source on IBM i, a half day online workshop with Mike Pavlak, introduces you to the fundamentals of using Open Source Software on IBM i. Mike will cover concepts and terminology, how to install and manage open source tools, and survey several open source projects and languages.

October 3 – Online Workshop – Foundations in SQL on IBM i, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, covers SQL terminology and concepts, including basic syntax for Data Manipulation Language (DML) and Data Definition Language (DDL), as well as the many SQL functions and compare/contrast some of them with RPG built-in functions. We’ll look at accessing data from multiple tables using JOIN and UNION. We’ll look at the use of subselect (a SELECT within a SELECT) and the use of Common Table Expressions (CTE) to accomplish more complex data access.

October 5 – Online Workshop – RPG Procedures & SRVPGMs by Example, a half day online workshop with Susan Gantner, covers how and why to use ILE procedures, modules, service programs, binding directories, binder language, and activation groups.

October 9-11 – Virginia Beach, Virginia – Join COMMON for NAViGATE, which will feature more than 100 sessions presented by industry expert speakers, an expo of leading solution providers in the IBM i space, and limitless networking opportunities to connect with peers and experts to maximize your learning opportunities.

October 10 – Online Workshop – Python for RPGers, a half day online workshop with Mike Pavlak, explores the implementation, syntax and application use cases of Python on IBM i.

October 12 – Online Workshop – API Enable Your Application with Web Services, a half day online workshop with Jon Paris and Paul Tuohy, takes you step by step through the basics of creating and consuming web services using either RPG or SQL along with JSON or XML and HTTPAPI or IWS. Learn which approach is right for you.

October 17 – Online Workshop – A to Z of Embedded SQL in RPG, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, takes you from the basics of a simple SELECT statement, to using a cursor, to using a paging cursor, to using SQL to maintain your data, to wrapping SQL functions as RPG subprocedures, to accessing the web with SQL, to the proper use of dynamic SQL… and much, much more.

October 19 – Online Workshop – Is Code for IBM i Right for You?, a half day online workshop with Susan Gantner and Jon Paris, introduces you to Code for IBM i, an open source extension to Microsoft's Visual Code Studio. This new IDE supports developers working on IBM i applications that use languages like RPG, COBOL and CL as well as PHP, Node.js, Python and other open source languages.

October 24 – Online Workshop – PHP for RPGers, a half day online workshop with Mike Pavlak, focuses on the fundamentals of PHP. It moves on to exhibit a simple use case for an application and then decompose the application with a LOT of nifty tools and features.

October 26 – Online Workshop – Coding a Modern RPG Application, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, takes you through the structure and code behind a modern RPG application, exploring the details of each of its many layers.

October 31 – Online Workshop – SQL Procedures, Functions and Triggers, a half day online workshop with Paul Tuohy, shows you how to use SQL to allow other languages (and platforms) to take advantage of existing IBM i code or to access SQL capabilities from RPG or COBOL applications.