Happy Halloween! This week's news roundup covers what tricks and treats IBM has in store for us in the upcoming Refresh. HINT: Node.js and Cloud are part of the picture. Also, if you missed our free webinar on Agile Modernization with Node.js, it is available on-demand here. Now let's get to the news.

Happy Halloween with IBM i 7.3 Technology Refresh 1
by Steve Pitcher

• IBM has released its fall announcement for IBM i, in this case the news that IBM i 7.3 Technology Refresh 1 and 7.2 Technology Refresh 5 have been announced.
• The big fish in this Technology Refresh is the Cloud Storage Solutions for i.
• This product is great for everybody who wants to back up their data to off-site cloud storage as well as for IBM Business Partners and ISVs who want to host their customers’ backups.

Source: http://www.mcpressonline.com/analysis-of-news-events/happy-halloween-with-ibm-i-73-technology-refresh-1.html

The JavaScript Event Loop for IBM i Developers
by Brian May

• Understanding the Event Loop is critical to JavaScript development both in the browser and in Node.js.
• As RPG developers, we work, at least the majority of the time, in a very top-down, single-threaded model. When we start working with JavaScript, asynchronous code and callback functions can be very confusing.
• Let’s examine what these things are, how they work, and how they relate to familiar IBM i concepts.

Source: http://www.mcpressonline.com/scripting/the-javascript-event-loop-for-ibm-i-developers.html

Knowing Node
by Dan Burger

• Node.js is not just one of many open source components that are riding in the IBM i bus these days. It is the one that is most talked about these days.
• At Profound Logic, CEO Alex Roytman predicts Node.js will have a noticeable impact in the IBM i community. Profound UI, the company's core application development tool, will soon be available in a Node version and an RPG to Node conversion tool is being developed.
• Converting existing code to Node code makes it easier to maintain and understand if an organization has the Node skills.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh102416-story05.html

Replacing Source in The Twenty-First Century
by Ted Holt

• In Searching Source in The Twenty-First Century, I introduced the use of regular expressions for searching within a source member.
• Searching is great, but sometimes you need to replace what the system finds with something else.
• Here's how to replace text when using regular expressions...

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/fhg/fhg101816-story02.html

IBM i Survey Gets Better As Numbers Grow
by Dan Burger

• The IBM i Strategy and Roadmap document lays out the plan for the future. That's great. We need to see where we're going.
• "The good news is that they don't seem to be going anywhere--they love the platform. But they are obviously looking at how they bring new capability into their datacenter on the other parts of the Power Systems stack, such as Linux on Power or SAP HANA on Power. We continue to innovate on the operating systems and the systems that support it. I tell clients that despite all of the conversations we have around Linux--and we are obviously driving growth there--we remain very, very committed to the IBM i client base." -Doug Balog, General Manager of IBM Power Systems.
• Balog's perspective on customer satisfaction was backed up by more than two-thirds of the 2016 survey respondents that said they planned to increase their IBM i footprint (22 percent) or maintain the system with no changes. However, more than eight percent said they had plans to migrate all IBM i applications to a new platform--90 percent of those said it would happen within the next five years.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh101116-story05.html

And that's all for this edition of IBM i Pulse! Feel free to let us know in the comments if I missed anything!