Glad to have you back for this week's IBM i news roundup! This week we are looking at all things COMMON from last week's conference. But First...

Steve Pitcher of MC Press Online talks about what he learned at this years COMMON annual conference. 

Source: http://www.mcpressonline.com/career/general/what-i-learned-at-the-spring-common-conference-2017

COMMON Looking Youthful in 2017

by Dan Burger

Directly after this year's COMMON annual conference, some fresh faces were added to the leadership of the COMMON user group.  In 2017 the leader in user groups for the IMB i community, was looking to add 2 new board members and name a new President. The result of these votes was an infusion of youth to the COMMON leadership (similarly to the infusion of youth we have seen within the entire IBM i community). Justin Porter will be the new President of COMMON while Charles Guarino and John Valance will be added as board members.

Along with the news of fresh faces to the COMMON leadership, the article by Dan also covers the COMMON boot camp and an update on their internship program. “We’ve met with several vendors who are excited about an internship program,” Executive Director Manzoor Siddiqui says. “We expect to expand this through our vendor community and corporate member community.” 

Profound Logic has already begun our own internship program to help with the infusion of youth into the IBM i community. You can listen too our own Brian May discuss our intern program with IBM Systems Magazine's own Paul Tuohy here:

Source: https://www.itjungle.com/2017/05/15/common-looking-youthful-2017/

Open Source On IBM i: Let it Grow

by Dan Burger

Many years ago IBM i chief architect Steve Will understood open source was a necessary focus area for the growth of IBM i and the IBM i community. At this years annual COMMON meetings, Will heard members of the open source community what is currently happening as well as possible future plans for open sourcing with IBM i. With about 60 participants, this open table discussion had a wide range of users experience and age. 

With so many participants there was a wide range of thoughts and ideas of where the open source community is currently and where it is going. 

Source: https://www.itjungle.com/2017/05/15/open-source-ibm-let-grow/

Profound Digs Deeper Into Node.js

by Dan Burger

With all the announcements and education happening through out the COMMON week, many important announcements can get overlooked or forgotten. One of the most important announcements to come out of COMMON was the introduction of Profound Logic's Profound.js 2.0, which is now available. 2.0 extends the power of Node.js to your business with reducing the costs and risks of migrating off the platform or doing a complete system re-write. 

This Agile Modernization approach helps business more easily find developers for the platform and deliver modern applications in a fraction of the time! Profound.js 2.0 will help you extend your applications to include Watson API as well as IoT (Internet of Things) too.  Some of the new additions for Profound.js 2.0 include:

• Free Node.js Framework and Visual Designer: 

As a free NPM package, the Node.js framework for Profound.js 2.0 will give you a JavaScript RPG-like capabilities such as IBM i data types and the ability to code business applications with ease. 

• Commercial Connector Module:

By converting RPG programs to Node.js opens up new capabilities for programmers, including direct usage of an open source NPM component. With Profound.js 2.0 Connector Module, you are able to enable existing RPG programs to directly call Node.js modules and vice versa. 

• Enhanced JumpStart Module (available w/ Profound UI):

The JumpStart module is available with Profound UI, and gives users the ability to generate clean and modern looking RPG and PHP code. Now with 2.0 JumpStart can also enable users to generate Node.js code automatically. 

 Click here for details on Profound.js 2.0. 

One of our focuses for 2017 is the continued adoption of Node.js in IBM i shops. Click here to read our white paper on Why Node.js Is The Solution Your Company Needs.

And there, you're all caught up! Sounds like we have an interesting 2017!