COMMON 2012 Recap
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Transcript COMMON 2012 Recap
David Mount
Owner, texAS400 Computer Consulting
www.texas400.com
Normal presenter at MMSA is an expert on the subject matter
I was lucky winner of MMSA trip to Common Conference May 6-9,
2012 in Anaheim, CA at the Disneyland Resort
Cost of a conference is around $1,300
My first Common Conference
4 days of presentations
A dozen or so concurrent presentations
Some presentations in ballrooms, some in small classrooms
Vendor exhibition hall with all the usual suspects
Free lunch (cocktail party food) in exhibition hall as a way to see
vendors and mingle with attendees
Final evening included an outdoor Bar-B-Q with C&W band
Middle aged geeks everywhere
Note – about 35 slides in this presentation
Will try to demo the Wikis and SoapUI
Spend 4 days with AS/400 users and experts
See presentations on topics near and dear to you
See presentations on topics that you have a casual
curiosity about (but no time to learn about)
Like going to 20 MMSA meetings in a row (but in a
good way)
For me, the worst presentation usually has a couple of
ideas that make it worth hearing
Most of these presentations have lots of really good
information
Get to see the movers and shakers of the AS/400
world
In Grand Ballroom
About 2 hours
Common President, Pete Massiello
Welcome presentation by Pete
Pete is in NY area
Slide presentation by IBM
Presentation by Disney
One hour business motivational speech
Topic was “why Disney is successful”
Mentioned Often
php
Functions that use Java objects
Open source (php and Java)
IBM i
Mobile Apps
“Modernize” your system
Aaron Bartell and Scott Klement
Not mentioned
EGL
Cobol
Scott Klement
Jon Paris and Susan Ganter (Partner400)
Richard J Schoen (RJS Software)
David Gibbs (Host of www.midrange.com)
Trevor Perry (Former president of MMSA)
Charles Guarino (Central Park Data Systems)
Bruce Vining (API expert and author)
Paul Tuohy’s presentation to MMSA
He referred to OPO rather than OOP
Other People’s Objects vs Object Oriented
Programming
I’ve spent 12 years avoiding Java
ILE gives up ability to call Java objects
Opens door to using Open Source code
Poi.apache.com for Excel Spreadsheets
JDBC drivers to talk to databases
Jasper reports to mimic Crystal Reports
Ruby on Rails
Accessing IFS from RPG
Consuming Web Services
Excel Spreadsheets
External Databases
RPG Does TCP/IP
RPG User Defined Functions
How to use API’s to:
Open IFS file
Read IFS file
Write to IFS file
Get directory of IFS folder
Check for object
Most exciting concept at conference for me
More on this later
Free access to Scott’s HTTPAPI program
Use RPG to retrieve information using web services
UPS Tracking Info program included
(requires free UPS user ID from UPS web site)
At Klement Sausage, green screen login screen includes
the 5 day weather forecast
SOAPUI overview
Free tool for working with WSDL and SOAP
A “key to the kingdom” of Web Services
Examples of how to create Excel
spreadsheets using RPG
Fairly long (40 slide) presentation on using
poi.apache.org
Not related to apache server
This topic also covered in Partner400 (Jon
Paris and Susan Ganter) presentation at
MMSA
Another example of using ILE to call Java
objects (OPO – other people’s objects)
Database manufacturers make drivers for Java
JDBC connection
Oracle, MY SQL, Microsoft SQL
JDBCR4 – RPG wrapper to call JDBC
Includes instructions for installing the Java .jar
which has the JDBC drivers
39 slides including samples of how to use JDBCR4
to insert, select, update and delete records
41 slides on how to use OS/400 API’s to create
socket connections
Read and Write to almost any device that can
make a socket connection
Scott uses it to program the display sign in
front of the Klement Sausage Factory
Presented by IBM’r Jesse Gorzinski
It’s free, no strings attached.
Fully supported by IBM Service.
–User forum on Web is monitored by IBM developers.
Lets any Java app, anywhere on your LAN,
–Access and exploit your IBM i resources.
Thoroughly documented on the Web.
In use by IBM and customers since V4R2 (1998).
–Used under-the-covers in many other IBM products.
Jasper Reports
Open source, java equivalent to Crystal Reports
“Modernize” your reports
Green bar print outs as old fashioned as green screen
PC Based IDE with graphic designer
A lot of work but very attractive reports
Various distribution options:
PDF
HTML
Text
RTF (Rich Text Format)
Another open source, java option
Ruby is an open source, object oriented
language
Similar to Perl, Smalltalk, Python
Ruby on Rails (sometimes called Rails) is a web
application framework of Ruby
Groupon and Hulu are Rails applications
Tons of open source and templates
About 1/3 as popular as php
Good example of something I was interested in
but don’t have time to learn (yet)
Bruce Vining – former IBM’r who wrote many
of the API’s
Author of API book
V7.1: @ 50 new, @ 80 changed
V6R1: @170 new, @ 250 changed
V5R4: @ 90 new, @ 170 changed
V5R4
Message Watch
A little like reply list entries
STRWCH, ENDWCH, WRKWCH
Includes sample code for exit programs
V6
Call Job Interrupt Program (QWCJBITP)
Allows you to run an exit program in the initial thread
of another job
See what’s in the QTEMP library
Update objects such as a *DTAARA in QTEMP
Basically run whatever the current caller of the API is
authorized to
Can be very dangerous when in the wrong hands
woo-hoo!
User Customized Options for WRKOUTQ,
WRKSPLF
Lets you define options for WRKSPLF similar to
the way you add user options to PDM
You could make option “EM” to email the spool
file
Older but clever tips and techniques
Using prestart jobs to run monitor type jobs
User cannot end job
They can end it but it starts up again
Use Database trigger to populate last date
and time changed
Also mentioned a trick to write a message and
then read it as a way of determining program
that changes data
See slide 28
Includes short overview of journaling
Random WRKSPLF fun fact
V5R4 adds filter to select by date range
Update data area with each step of nightly
job
If job abends, data area has last successful step
Create QSYSMSG message queue
Only serious messages get written to QSYSMSG
Lots more clever tips
Wiki comes from Hawaiian word for fast
Web pages that can be updated by users
Everyone knows what Wikipedia is
Pages can be changed by users
Audit trails are kept and changes can be reversed
Wikipedia runs a php application “MediaWiki”
Open source
Lots of forums
A bit complicated
Simple enough that I could do it
Drew works for an Alaskan Railroad
His company is not Sarbanes Oxley compliant
He recognized that their company documentation was in
hard copy in a storage room
Inaccessible and obsolete
He replaced the company documentation with
MediaWiki
Users enter and modify documentation constantly
Software allows users to upload documents and images
Written in php
Could run it on your AS/400, PC (WAMP or LAMP)
More on MediaWiki
It uses a markup language that it very simple
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= Heading 1 =
== Heading 2 ==
=== Heading 3 ===
Automatically builds clickable table of contents at top of page
[[ links to another wiki page ]]
[[http:// links to internet page ]]
Lots of other simple formatting rules
Also supports html
Go to www.texas400.com:82/wiki to see the one
running on my PC
Wiki on a Stick
Very small
The idea is that you can keep all of your info on a
USB flash drive
It is really just an updatable html document
I used it for 3 days
It self destructed – it cleared the document
I am using ZimWiki
It is really just a note taker
Even simpler formatting rules
Not intended as a group product
▪ It’s for me only
I am creating a knowledge base so I can be replaced by a
machine
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Phone #’s
AS/400 tips
Copy and paste articles and source code
Projects I’m working on
Testing tips (use Invoice # 5564 to test)
Easy to search complete database
Working well for me to organize information especially when I an
interrupted
My thought is that the AS/400 is capable of doing almost all
“modern” things but often requires bolt-on software
Consume web services with Klement’s HTTPAPI
Parse XML with XML-SAX
Run php with free Zend software
Things to consider:
Php server with open source applications like MediaWiki, help desk
software (Mantis400 or osTicket), or SugarCRM
Consume web services – I’ve added Scott Klements UPS Tracking
application to one of my clients system in 4 hours
Magento Web Services
Mobile Apps – I’ve written a demo mobile app for Order Entry
Web development – I’ve written a demo shopping cart application that
included learning why CSS is so cool
Help start a movement to re-re-re-rename the i
i sounds like an Apple product
Android OS is named ios
Can’t be googled
Hated by everyone I’ve ever met
Encourages people to believe that AS/400 is no longer produced
In fact, the AS/400 is no longer produced
AS/400 Version 7.1
AS/400 Generation 2012
Trevor Perry has URL www.i4everyone.com
Maybe start a site www.bringbackas400.com
Select some high profile reports and “modernize”
them
For example
▪ Take daily sales report
▪ Rewrite as a pretty report (use AFPDS or Jasper or Excel)
▪ Convert it to pdf and email it to CFO every morning
▪ Or rewrite it to output to a static html file so CFO can view the
report online
Use CGIDEV2 or php to rewrite a screen or two as a
browser page
You do not need to convert everything, only a few
things
Add things to your system that will make
upper management afraid to migrate away
“you mean your PC system doesn’t even include
the 5 day forecast on the login screen?!?”
As a Common attendee, I have a user ID to download presentations from the
conference I attended
I could see topics from previous conferences but could not download them
Many of the presentations are re-runs
I contacted Common to see if it was OK to share the downloads with MMSA
They had never been asked about this
They said that they were merely providing access to the presentations and that I could do
whatever I liked with the material. Copyright issues were up to me.
I took the view that almost all of the presenters would be flattered.
I did not include Partner400 presentations since Jon and Susan make a living
out of their presentations.
Go to www.texas400.com
Click on last link on left side of home page labeled MMSA
Download about 78mb that includes 44 pdf’s