Bad Joke of the Month I just overheard that Earl is real mixed up. (You may have to read it again to get it.) IBM Releases Constant Standalone Fields to RPG This spring, IBM added support for “Constant StandaloneFields” to RPG. To avoid confusion with other types of constants (figurativeconstants, named constants, enumerated constants) that exist…
Deep Thought Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that, were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value. — Excerpt from an 1865 Boston Post editorial. IBM Releases Updates to RPG’s SND-MSG Opcode Every Spring and Fall IBM adds new features to…
Dumb Joke of the Month My first choice for a career was to play hide & seek! After all, great players are hard to find. COMMON POWERUP 2024 As I write this blog post, I am preparing to attend COMMON’s POWERUp 2024 in Fort Worth, TX (May 20-24, 2024). If you’ll be there, please stop…
Dumb Joke of the Month My landlord called, said he wanted to discuss why my heating bills were so high. I said “Sure! My door is always open.” Retrieving a Display Session’s IP Address This is a question that comes up quite frequently. It’s often useful for a program running on the IBM i to know…
Deep Thought of the Month “I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” – The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957. When to Use or…
Bad Joke of the Month: Yesterday, I ate a clock. It was very time consuming…especially when I went back for seconds. Enumeration Support On October 10, IBM announced the latest RPG features. Among the new features were Enumerations (sometimes called ‘mnemonics’) – which is a group of named constants meant to identify all of the…
Bad Joke of the Month: A friend went Axe Throwing. I asked if she ever tried it blind folded. She replied, “No.” so I said “You don’t know what you’re missing!” %LEFT and %RIGHT Built-in Functions On October 10, IBM announced the latest RPG features. Among the new features were the %LEFT and %RIGHT built-in…
Bad Joke of the Month: Q: Why do programmers prefer dark mode?A: Because light attracts bugs. Environment Variables in Cobol? Why not? After posting last month’s blog post about environment variables, I was asked by a reader if it’s possible to use environment variables in a Cobol program. The answer? Yes, of course! You see,…
Deep thought: Computers and AI will never be able to replace human programmers until they learn to laugh at the boss’s bad jokes. You Should Use Environment Variables I’ve noticed that not too many traditional IBM i programmers are using environment variables. I’ve been wondering why because I find them to be very useful. I’ve…
Joke of the month: Crow: Excuse me, ma’am, would you like to donate to my charity? Woman: Maybe, what is it called? Crow: CAW! CAW! CAW! CAW! Woman: I don’t understand! Crow: It’s four good caws! Spring 2023 Enhancements to SELECT/WHEN The RPG SELECT/WHEN statements have been enhanced to allow for a single condition with…