Web Development

Rich Internet applications on IBM i

At COMMON in April, I met with Alex Roytman of ProfoundLogic Software, who shared the company’s Profound Logic TV initiative to share educational videos with IBM i professionals.

Last week the company released their newest video on Rich Internet applications (RIAs) for the IBM i. Roytman provides some background information on the technology and compares RIAs with traditional Web applications, and shows how RIA Libraries and Frameworks can help create powerful user interfaces with little to no coding.

The team at Profound Logic is interested in getting feedback on what you would like them to cover in future videos. Leave your comments here or contact them directly.

Web development on IBM i, what’s important to learn?

On my way to COMMON in Reno, Nev. I happened to be sitting in a seat near another attendee. He found out who I was and unleashed a series of questions about IBM i, specifically with an interest in figuring out how to prioritize the sessions he would attend at the meeting. Some reading and past initiatives had left him a bit bewildered as to what development tools he should focus on learning, and which were disappearing into the ether. I passed the questions on to a couple of our site contributors, Jim Mason and Andrew Borts, as well as COMMON attendee and Midrange.com owner and founder, David Gibbs.

Is IBM’s WebFacing Tool replaced now by HATS, or has it been de-emphasized, or is something else going on?

Borts: WebFacing is now enhanced by HATS – or Host Access Transform Services. This isn’t your mothers “Screen Scraping” software. This is a server based system that takes 3270/5250 applications (e.g., “legacy”) using a macro language with the screen’s behind them and can serve them on a multitude of clients including mobile phones, Firefox, smart phones, and more – not just Web. This option should be considered any time a legacy application needs a little kick for the user communities, giving the ability to make Web-based screens more logical for the users.

Mason: Changes in IBM product managers change strategies. To use WebFacing and HATS now you have to license the server from IBM. HATS is the default dynamic translation of 5250 screens for the Web. You can do customization of screens with WebFacing tools and deploy the customized screens.

Is the “Rational” product something I need to use, or is it more for larger projects that involve multiple people developing and testing?

Borts: Rational Software Solutions were designed to manage large software projects where change control, requirements management, and QA management are combined.

Mason: Rational products are purchased. They are also an option. You don’t need to buy them if you don’t want to. The alternative to RDI for building RPG applications is to do it the old way using SEU and the RPG compiler. The alternative to Rational Application Developer for i to build Web applications is using the free Eclipse BIRT or Web Tools suites. With these, you can do Web reporting, build Web applications, Web services etc.

Is RPG ILE also not a major emphasis anymore? I read the paper by Sharon Hoffman from 2006 that seemed to say the direction was away from RPG and toward JAVA. Does that say time would be better spent working with JAVA than RPG?

Borts: Well, yes and no. Yes, if you have the time and energy, Java is an emerging technology and anything written has some relationship to it. But, learning all the Web technologies – starting with HTML and Javascript, then after those skills are learned (not perfected) you can address the Web technologies such as AJAX applications utilizing CGI back-end software such as RPG (which can run CGI applications), Net.Data, Java (via JSP) and PHP can serve on an iSeries. Ajax allows for partial page refreshes, which makes a Web browser to act more like a PC application. RPG has had major enhancements over the past few years. We have RPG FREE, which is being used more and more (I call this language Java Junior cause it looks like Java!).

Mason: IBM doesn’t have a direction for development for System i. They have options. Sometimes they push one more than the other but there is not a clear strategic direction, just choices available. Your choices are RPG, PHP and Java.

RPG is fine for traditional RPG applications. Despite IBM’s attempts to do better, it’s not a great choice to do Web, Web services or XML applications - newer Java tools are much better.

PHP is a decent environment for building basic Web applications and more and it has good access to i5 OS features in the PHP toolkit for System i. the PHP runtime is OK.

Traditional Java development for i5 OS uses either Rational or Eclipse Web or BIRT tools and the Java Toolkit for the System i. Eclipse and the Java toolkit are both free and very good choices. Java runtime is better than PHP. Now Java development has moved ahead of other options with Groovy and Grails. New Java based on Groovy/Grails is easier to learn and faster to build many types of applications than the other choices. I’ll start covering more on Groovy/Grails for System i in search400 and the Virtual WebSphere Community Edition user group. You can find out general Groovy info and Grails info at the linked websites. I did a hands-on lab at COMMON building a Grails Web database application that created, updated, searched books and authors in a database. All students were RPG with no Web experience and completed the lab in one hour. I also do QuickWeb workshops for companies trying to make transitions to Web technologies quickly.

Gibbs: IMO, RPG and Java best work hand in hand. Java (JSP, servlets) work best for the general user interface with RPG doing the heavy lifting for database and business rules.

How many of these products cost extra? Web application Server? Rational Developer?

Borts: As far as costs, you can serve a Web page with an IBM i for free – all built in. However, many technologies are free. PHP, Net.Data, and CGI are all technologies that require no money up front to load onto the AS/400. Net.Data is actually supplied with the operating system, then RPG CGI can be downloaded from G.B. Peroti’s Web site, Easy400.net, then PHP can be installed on ANY i5 with V5R4 and above (V5R3 is back level supported, but not as many toys as Version meant for V5R4) for free – which fits into any budget. JSP pages can be served using Tomcat, which is supplied with the iSeries in the base OS. To run WebSphere, you need a paid license for the developer seat, and the server.

Mason: Rational tools cost more. The Eclipse suites (based on new Galileo base) for BIRT and Web tools are free. You also need to copy the jt400.jar file from the IFS folder. It connects Java to everything on the System i.

Your application server choices include WebSphere (billable), Apache Tomcat (free) and IBM WebSphere Community Edition (a full JEE server that is free but has options for IBM support plans if you need it for your production environments).

If you ever have questions that you would like to get a few opinions on, don’t forget that you can ask them via IT Knowledge Exchange, or ask a question of a specific expert or send me an email and I’ll shepherd it to the appropriate folks to provide you with answers. Also, please add your input on these questions below.

Budget issues? Reconsider open source on IBM System i

Mike Pavlak believes that open source has a bright future on the IBM System i platform. The economy is helping.

“Over the years our customers have commented that they are looking at PHP for a number of reasons,” Pavlak, a consultant for Zend Technologies, wrote. “The most common reason we are hearing in 2009 reflects the fact that open source is no longer an option or a luxury but strategic and cost effective…” Pavlak later added that “no cows are sacred in this new economy.”

As Pavlak notes, all branches of the popular open-source LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl/Python) are supported on the System i. He added that other open-source software customer relationship management (CRM) application SugarCRM allows you to run business applications for free (as a side note, the Young i Professionals has now made SugarCRM available in its sandbox so you can play around with it).

As Pavlak wrote, “IBM has been moving forward with open source for years. Why shouldn’t you?”

Finally, expect some Zend-related news on the System i in the next week or so.

No roll-back on Rational Developer = headache

Jon Paris at the System iDevelop blog has a trip report on installing a fix pack for Rational Developer for System i. Needless to say, it didn’t go so well.

Paris was having some issues described in the RDi release notes, and so he decided to install the update because 1) he had only heard of issues with the update in relation to RDi SOA; and 2) he hadn’t had issues with updates in a while.

This time was different. After a few days, the application kept stalling, and Ctrl+Atl+Del became Paris’ best friend. So he decided he would roll back the change. But uh-oh:

Problem. The Installation Manager insisted that the roll back information was unavailable. Strange–we were certain that we had set the option to keep roll back data. We checked the preferences and sure enough the option to save roll back data was selected, and the dialog showed over 800 MB of saved data! So why couldn’t we roll back? Hmmm, time to check the WDSC list at Midrange.com and see if anyone else had experienced these problems. It quickly became obvious that EGL users (RDi SOA) had experienced some difficulties, but nobody was complaining about basic RDi. So we posted a message and asked if anyone else was seeing the same problems. The only reply received (to date) was from the IBM Lab’s Eric Simpson who is on the RDi team (thanks Eric, even if we didn’t like the answer). Eric didn’t have any comment on the bugs per-se but it was the rest of his news that we didn’t want to hear!

For reasons that we hope IBM might choose to explain one of these days, RDi apparently does NOT support roll back. So once you apply a fix pack, the only way you have to get rid of it is to completely reinstall the product and then re-apply the known good fixes. Not a good option and a waste of an hour or so that frankly we just didn’t have. So it’s back to WDSC for the time being until we have time to spare.

Paris warns RDi users to now wait to update until problems are fleshed out and solved in the field. Meanwhile, Paris and iDevelop plan to post any updates as it plans to ask IBM to comment on the situation.

WebSphere Portlet Factory upgraded

IBM has announced an update to its WebSphere Portlet Factory, a Windows-based software package meant to help in development of J2EE applications.

The software runs on top of WebSphere Application Server (WAS) and supports the System i operating systems of IBM i and i5/OS.

With version 6.1.2, IBM has delivered several enhancements that it says speeds development and maintenance of portals, which is always a concern. One of those features is the capability to rapidly “re-brand” an entire Web portal with a centralized theme from one location.

The new version is meant to help developers get Web 2.0 applications running faster than in earlier versions.

The System i roundup for 2008

The iDevelop blog, part of the IBM Systems Magazine, has a good 2008 roundup of the System i platform. A lot happened with System i — er, IBM i — this year, and not all of it was related to the merger of i and p, although of course that was the biggest news.

The blog starts with its hat tips to those who have left us, including Al Barsa, Tom Jarosh, and Dick Bains, and then tips its hat to the father (grandfather?) of System i, Frank Soltis, who left us in a different way.

It then goes on to explain the merger of System i and p, the inevitable name change that came with it (and the hand wringing around it),  reworked IBM software tools and the rise of PHP on System i.

Interest in open source on i growing?

If the Young i Professionals blog is to be trusted, interest in open source applications on System i is growing.

Brian May wrote from Common Directions, the System i-focused trade show down in Dallas last week. The YiPs had a table down there, and May reported that it “seems everyone at the conference was asking about open source software, Web 2.0, MySQL, and PHP.” He followed that up with another post yesterday saying that he “spoke to lots of people, all of whom were interested in and excited about the site and the open source applications that we have loaded on i.”

If you’re unfamiliar with PHP on i, check out this tip from Andrew Borts as a starting point.

RPG, Java, .Net — they’re all developers, right?

It seems that in more and more System i educational classes, there are growing numbers of Java and .Net developers sitting in aside the RPG developers. This according to a post over at iDevelop. As the post says, “Quite often the non-RPGers don’t hang around for the RPG-specific topics in our courses. We customize all of our on-site classes so that our clients can mix RSE/WDSC with RPG or SQL or XML topics as needed for their requirements. This sometimes means the non-RPGers come and go throughout the class.”

That’s not always the case, however. During one class, there was a System i shop whose developers sat through everything no matter what, and in some cases, the non-RPGers did better on the RPG exercises than some of the old RPG pros. Their reasoning? The shop “integrates nearly all of their development projects” with System i developers working alongside non-i folks every step of the way, leading to what the blog post calls an “amazing synergy.”

When we work with such teams it is also apparent that this collaboration has resulted in the non-i folks gaining a true appreciation both for the i platform and the power and simplicity of RPG. It would seem that a good way to get a truly integrated application is to truly integrate the programmers creating it.

That sounds about right.

EGL Cafe open: Are you ready for a new language?

Over a year after IBM’s new Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) was launched, and following IBM’s own iSeries EGL tutorial publication, the EGL Cafe has opened. The site launch occurred after IBM’s Rational Software Developer Conference (RSDC) last week in Orlando, Fla.

New to the blogosphere (but not to i), Joe Pluta has launched his own EGL and i blog on the site. Pluta’s June 11, 2008, entry expounds the potential of EGL to help i developers everywhere:

By combining a procedural syntax with the concept of hiding complexity, EGL does what i developers have been asking for: it gives them a clean, consistent way to write web applications where they can concentrate on the business logic rather than the plumbing. In many ways, EGL is the spiritual successor to the 5250. While it far surpasses the 5250 in rich user experience, in many ways it’s as easy, if not easier, to use than the old green screen SDA. Combine that with a carefully crafted and deceptively simple CALL Interface, and EGL does for the web what display files did for the green screen.

And it’s clear that Pluta has been on board the EGL bandwagon for some time. In April 2008 he published a lengthy article explaining the niche the new programming language fills: Developing EGL Applications for the System i. In his EGL and i blog, Pluta explained that he intends to help i users learn how to work with this new language while taking advantage of their years of business logic experience.

… i shops already have business logic — logic that they’ve spent years (even decades!) developing — and the best initial use of EGL in those shops is exposing that logic, either directly as browser-based web applications or — moving to the true SOA approach — as web services that can be consumed by other internal and external clients. Then, they can combine that newly enabled business logic with all the rich application features of EGL to create new integrated applications they never dreamed of.

And my goal will be to explain how to do that quickly and productively.

If you’re saying, “Hold on a second? What’s EGL again?” You might find the video interview with EGL language architect Tim Wilson helpful.

But, if you’ve been paying attention to this new language, let us know. Leave your comments about your feelings, insights, or opinions about EGL. If you have experience using EGL on i, consider submittng a Tip!

SaaS on System i?

A few years ago, Salesforce.com came out with a product called AppExchange that allowed independent software vendors to host their applications on Salesforce.com for customers to use. It’s the software as a service (SaaS) approach that there is a lot of talk — and some think a lot of hype — around.

I mention this because Magic Software, a System i vendor that develops products around helping IT run in sync with business goals. Last week, the company announced that one of its signature products, iBOLT, would be offered on Salesforce.com.

Of course this leads me to wonder about whether there are a lot of System i companies out there that are Salesforce.com customers, and in particular if they use Salesforce.com for SaaS purposes.

I looked around and noticed that J.D. Edwards, one of the biggest System i ISVs, is also part of the site, and that Salesforce.com is definitely pitching the idea of being able to do SaaS of any kind of so-called “legacy” systems through them.

We asked a few of our experts what experience they may have had running SaaS products on i, and a few responded that they didn’t have experience. So generally speaking, we can safely assume that this is still pretty new. However, Jim Mason of ebt-now shared that he has worked with customers on Salesforce.com using standard ETL tools Informatica and Data Stage which essentially do the same thing that iBolt does.

When asked about any concerns about user friendliness and security when using a product like iBolt, Mason responded,

“If you are trying to do the replication real-time, experience has shown high variances in actual performance often over the Web and proprietary networks. Properly done, security shouldn’t be an issue. Like many good ETL tools, iBolt appears to minimize programming by using visual editors to create the data maps between the data source and the data target.”

He also elaborated that the advantage and attractiveness of a product such as iBolt includes the decreased technical skill requirements to operate the program compared to locally-installed programs. However, he also noted that “debugging connection or performance problems to an SaaS application can be challenging, even for the vendors.”

With the growth in popularity of cloud computing, Mason thinks that SaaS products have a growing role to play. In fact, he’s banking on it. His company is rolling out SaaS web solutions for small businesses in the coming year that will focus on online Web collaboration without programming, simple Web stores with simple data transfers for item catalog and sales data, online web meetings and collaboration tools, and online Web databases and applications that can be synchronized with local databases using export/import in batch mode.

Magic has some customer testimonials, but I’m curious if there’s anyone else out there who is using Salesforce.com, and in what capacity. And if not, why not.

Associate Editor Leah Rosin contributed much of this report.