David Shirey’s first book is an educational and entertaining read for “modern” and “old” RPG programmers alike
You probably know David Shirey from his articles here at MC Press Online. He’s funny, he’s witty, and his posts are pretty much always on target. His new book, 21st Century RPG: /Free, ILE, and MVC, is no different.
Dave’s book is a commendable effort to help all those programmers who find themselves lost in a “new RPG world” with loads of stuff they’re struggling to keep up with: free-format RPG; the Integrated Language Environment (service programs, binding directories, and other nightmarish things); built-in-functions; and weird concepts like design patterns, to name just a few. This funny guy whose articles we’ve read on diverse topic—from PHP to Watson to (naturally) RPG—decided to condense in a single book all the information that “stuck-in-RPG III” programmers need to take advantage of RPG’s latest and greatest features. However, the book also helps those programmers who know a bit about these topics to deepen their knowledge and challenge themselves with interesting exercises.
Learning Modern RPG Programming Can Be Fun
21st Century RPG: /Free, ILE, and MVC is an interesting journey. It starts by briefly presenting ILE, thus laying the groundwork for the rest of the book. The explanation might seem a little thin at first, but you’ll discover that there’s much more, “hidden” in the following sections.
The next stop is free-format RPG, with all the mandatory stops in H-, F-, and C-specs’ replacements as well as more practical stuff, like using service programs in free-format. Everything is connected, and most topics are revisited with more complete yet easy-to-follow examples. Dave does a thorough job of explaining some ILE topics that most books overlook, like activation groups and why they are important and service program signatures.
It’s obvious that Dave took his time to think this through and crafted a technical book that reads almost as a novel: each new section uses the “story” that was told on the previous ones and builds upon it brilliantly. It’s a great way to write a technical book, because it makes it easier for the reader to stay focused on the “bigger picture” while keeping an eye on the specifics of each topic.
The last part of the book focuses on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. This was the part I found most interesting, because MVC is not an easy concept for an RPG programmer. But again, Dave and his awesome sense of humor do a great job! He managed to put together a simple explanation that I believe any RPG programmer will understand. Even if readers don’t understand the concept at first, the fact that Dave took the time to explain how to apply the MVC design pattern to RPG (check out chapter 25) will greatly help anyone interested in using this concept in real life.
Don’t be alarmed by the fact that the book has a lot of chapters, because they’re short (typically no more than 10 pages), easy to read and to follow, and are full to the brim with condensed information and examples. It’s also important to mention that nearly all chapters include one or more “Now It’s Your Turn” sections: exercises that allow the reader to work on the topic or topics of the chapter. And of course, it’s Dave: his great, non-apologetic sense of humor turns even the most boring topic in a pleasurable read. I’ll leave you with a “pearl” from the acknowledgments section: after thanking a number of people, Dave finishes the section with “And that’s about it. To be honest, I did do some of this myself.”
I read the book in less than a week, because it’s a great, funny, and interesting read. This is not something I usually say about technical books. Dave touches all the important buttons, and you’ll learn a lot with this book—even if you’re stuck in the 1980s RPG III world!
Rafael Victória-Pereira has more than 20 years of IBM i experience as a programmer, analyst, and manager. Over that period, he has been an active voice in the IBM i community, encouraging and helping programmers transition to ILE and free-format RPG. Rafael has written more than 100 technical articles about topics ranging from interfaces (the topic for his first book, Flexible Input, Dazzling Output with IBM i) to modern RPG and SQL in his popular RPG Academy and SQL 101 series on mcpressonline.com and in his books Evolve Your RPG Coding and SQL for IBM i: A Database Modernization Guide. Rafael writes in an easy-to-read, practical style that is highly popular with his audience of IBM technology professionals.
Rafael is the Deputy IT Director - Infrastructures and Services at the Luis Simões Group in Portugal. His areas of expertise include programming in the IBM i native languages (RPG, CL, and DB2 SQL) and in "modern" programming languages, such as Java, C#, and Python, as well as project management and consultancy.
MC Press books written by Rafael Victória-Pereira available now on the MC Press Bookstore.
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Evolve Your RPG Coding: Move from OPM to ILE...and Beyond Transition to modern RPG programming with this step-by-step guide through ILE and free-format RPG, SQL, and modernization techniques. List Price $79.95 Now On Sale
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Flexible Input, Dazzling Output with IBM i Uncover easier, more flexible ways to get data into your system, plus some methods for exporting and presenting the vital business data it contains. List Price $79.95
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SQL for IBM i: A Database Modernization Guide Learn how to use SQL’s capabilities to modernize and enhance your IBM i database. List Price $79.95
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