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Phase 0 Complete: Navigating a Real IBM i Environment with Confidence
Phase 0 set out to answer a question that most RPG training skips entirely: before writing a single line of modern ILE RPG, does a developer actually understand the platform that code will run on? This closing lesson brings together…
Object Authority, User Profiles, and Adopted Authority: IBM i Security Fundamentals
Security on IBM i isn't a separate concern bolted onto application development — it's woven directly into the object model covered throughout Phase 0, and understanding its fundamentals is essential for any developer working on production…
Display Files, Printer Files, and Database Files: Same Object Type, Different Jobs
IBM i groups display files, printer files, and database files under a single object type — *FILE — which can be genuinely confusing until you understand that shared type is about system-level classification, not about these three kinds of…
How Real Enterprise IBM i Applications Are Actually Structured
Open an unfamiliar IBM i application for the first time, and it can feel overwhelming — dozens or hundreds of objects spread across multiple libraries, with no obvious starting point. But nearly every well-built enterprise IBM i…
DB2 for i: The Database That's Already Built Into Your Operating System
Ask a developer coming from another platform how their database relates to their operating system, and you'll typically hear about a separate installation, a server process to manage, and a connection string to configure. On IBM i, that…
Programs, Modules, and Service Programs: Making Sense of the ILE Object Model
The Integrated Language Environment, or ILE, object model is the structural backbone of nearly everything built on IBM i today, and understanding how its core object types relate to one another is essential before writing modern ILE RPG.
The CL Commands Every RPG Developer Uses Every Day
Control Language, or CL, is how developers and operators actually operate IBM i — compiling objects, managing libraries, controlling jobs, and retrieving system information. Regardless of which development tools a shop uses, CL commands…
Setting Up RDi: Bringing Modern IDE Tooling to IBM i Development
Rational Developer for i, known almost universally as RDi, is the modern counterpart to PDM and SEU — an Eclipse-based IDE that brings syntax checking, code outline views, integrated source control, and a proper debugger to IBM i…
PDM and SEU: The Green-Screen Tools That Still Run Countless Shops
Long before Eclipse-based IDEs arrived on IBM i, there was PDM and SEU — and despite decades of tooling advances since, both are still in daily use across a significant share of IBM i shops today. Understanding them isn't a nostalgia…