What Coding Language Should You Teach Yourself?
January 25, 2021
Coding and programming are major additions to any worker’s skillset and can make the job market a much easier place to navigate. Companies everywhere are looking for candidates who are already trained in various coding languages, and the good news is that with all the online resources available for free, it’s easy to teach yourself […]
ArticlesWhat Makes CICS, a Mixed Language Application Server, So Special?
August 10, 2020
CICS® has been around since 1969 and still continues to flourish as a mixed language application server today. Primarily running on mainframes, also known as an IBM Z®, CICS does run in limited forms on other platforms, as well. As an application server, it is used to host applications that can be written in several […]
ArticlesModernization Carries Varied Meanings for Different People
March 23, 2020
When the IBM z15 was announced I couldn’t wait to read the information about the advancements and changes that we would all see. I quickly read about System Recovery Boost, integrated zEDC compression, standard rack space frame, double cache density on each chip, etc. The modern mainframe; the fastest, most resilient and high availability, commercially-available […]
ArticlesGetting Started With REST and SQL
January 2, 2020
Rest, can you ever really get enough of it? Not only is rest great in the overnight hours, but it’s key in today’s world of modern development. For many years, IBM i has included a web services engine, which was originally able to create SOAP-based web services over RPG and COBOL programs and services programs. […]
ArticlesClosing the COBOL Programming Skills Gap
October 25, 2019
The backbone of today’s electronic commerce is COBOL on an IBM Z computing platform. There are 240 billion lines of COBOL in operation, and another 5 billion new lines are added each year. $3 trillion of commercial transactions are processed by COBOL applications each day. COBOL is what business runs on. Some reports indicate that […]
Application Performance and Tuning
May 14, 2019
As the original author of “CICS Performance Bulletin” published by IBM Dallas System Center, and co-author of the subsequent IBM “CICS TS Performance Guide” in conjunction with IBM Hursley CICS TS Development, performance and tuning has been a big part of my job. I’ve performed more CICS performance studies than I can count, and almost […]
ArticlesCOBOL Turns 60
May 1, 2019
On April 8, 1959, a team led by Grace Hopper met for the first time to begin developing the specifications for the COBOL programming language. A day short of five years later, on April 7, 1964, the computer platform that would come to be most closely associated with this great programming language was announced: the […]
ArticlesImproved Error Handling Increases Usability
March 1, 2019
Errors can be managed, anticipated, controlled and sometimes resolved if an IT development unit is properly structured.
Articles10 Amazing Things that Happened in 2018
January 4, 2019
In 2018, Jesse Gorzinski predicted that it would be a breakthrough year for open source on IBM i, and his prediction held true.
ArticlesThree Innovative Middleware Solutions
December 17, 2018
A discussion of WebSphere Application Server, IBM Cloud Integration and IBM Automation Platform for Digital Business middleware offerings.