Building applications for mobile devices
These days almost everyone has one or more mobile devices, ranging from Smartphones to tablets. From a business perspective, widespread use of mobile devices is useful, as it allows immediate access to information for employees who work remotely and/or travel frequently. Customers also have easy access to information about products and services.
While the “App Stores” offer thousands of mobile applications, employees need mobile applications that will integrate with line-of-business (LOB) applications and unstructured information. Mobile applications built for customers, must help them in their relationship with the company by informing them about the status of purchases, providing information about products and allowing customers to ask questions or place orders.
Developers who work with RPG or COBOL on IBM i servers will find building applications for mobile devices a very different experience. Mobile devices are smaller, operate on a limited power supply, store much less data on the device and human interaction is touch. The devices have additional capabilities including cameras, location awareness and gyroscopes. Mobile applications can be browser based, native to the mobile device, or a hybrid of both. Native applications written for mobile devices don't use RPG or COBOL as the development language, and the device constraints require different application architectures and design principles.
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Using JSON to Build Efficient Applications
As modern Web applications have become increasingly interactive and data centric, techniques have been sought to make these applications more efficient. A major breakthrough in this area was the advent of AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML). Since then, developers have continued to squeeze even more performance and efficiency out of every byte. One way to achieve these gains has been the use of JSON.
Let’s first understand what JSON is and what it isn’t. The formal international standard for JSON is RFC 4627. Douglas Crockford, the originator of the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) specification, describes JSON as “a lightweight data-interchange format.” It’s based on two key ideas — the use of name/value pairs and an ordered list of values. Since these conventions exist in nearly every significant programming language, this makes JSON a good solution across many platforms. While JSON is often described as a subset of Javascript, JSON itself is not a language. Nor is it a document format. JSON is a way to store information in an organized, easy-to-access way. It's both human- and machine-readable and is easily parsed. Most importantly, JSON is an open, text-based data exchange format that provides simplicity and programming language independence.
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iPulse 2011 Survey Results
The second annual iPulse Survey, organized by LANSA, ran during October 2011 and was promoted to the global IBM i community via email, social media and publicized by leading industry media outlets like Intelligencer Magazine, IT Jungle and MC Press Online.
This year’s survey attracted just over 1,500 participants worldwide, which is around 10% down from last year’s numbers. Although views this year were represented from farther afield, with responses received from over 70 countries – a 30% greater reach than last year’s survey.
The participants represented a cross-section of the industry whose job roles were as follows:
- Business Management – 22%
- Developer / Analyst – 40%
- Project Management – 17%
- Operations – 13%
- Other (vendor, journalist, consultant, etc) – 8%
The Secret Thoughts of an IBM i IT Manager
Guest Blogger: Paul Conte, President PCES, is a leading Application Development Strategist.
The other day I was reflecting back on what has been a long, and generally fun and interesting IT career. One thing I remember vividly was discovering the IBM System/38, the first incarnation of what would evolve into the AS/400 and the current IBM i. I was responsible at the time for a major planning process for a large university’s (hint: “Go Ducks!”) administrative computing strategy. The S/38 technology promised application flexibility and reliability unimaginable on the other platforms available at the time. The IBM i technology still does.
But, as in the early days of the S/38, this platform’s technology and benefits are a well-kept secret. There were more than a few nights I lay awake wondering whether I’d made the right decision to embark on a consulting career focused on the IBM S/38, AS/400, i world. Would the then “jazzy” Wang system, with its fairly slick, but also fairly shallow, interface capture the imagination of departmental organizations wanting to break free of the central IBM mainframe? Would the just introduced DEC-system 20 dominate, with its far greater horsepower than the S/38 and a more modern operating system than the IBM mainframe (but still years behind the S/38 architecture)? In the end only one of those competitors survived, and has in fact thrived.
So, I empathize with today’s System i IT managers who may share similar worries. But I also can offer encouragement. Before doing that, however, let me spin a story and see if it sounds familiar. I call this “The Secret Thoughts of an IBM i IT Manager.”
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Using JavaScript Frameworks for Building Business Applications
Over the past decade, we’ve seen the explosion of information, mobile devices, tablets and the ability to consume and access information from anywhere in the world. Web applications are being built at an ever-increasing pace to satisfy the need for information and deliver content-rich, user-friendly applications to users. With the increased demand being placed on IT departments to build and deliver business applications, HTML, CSS and JavaScript are being used to develop creative, immersive and cutting-edge Web applications.
One of the trickiest tasks any Web developer faces is the ability to build and deliver the same functionality and richness across multiple browsers and devices of various form factors. The introduction of HTML5 and CSS3 makes this task even more challenging as not all current browsers support the same HTML5 and CSS3 features. Browser vendors are incrementally adding support for new HTML5 and CSS3 features with periodic browser updates, which further complicates the matter. Continue reading “Using JavaScript Frameworks for Building Business Applications” »