Recommended IDE Release

The disparity between IDE and developer tools provided the committee with an enormous challenge, especially when considered in conjunction with “fully free” code considerations. A key consideration here is the developer tools primarily in use in the potential adopter installations.

It is therefore important that all participants acknowledge that even though IBM no longer actively maintain ADTS (Application Development Tools on IBM i, such as SEU, PDM, etc.), it remains the primary developer tool in use on IBM i, especially in the SMB installed base.

We strongly advise the adoption of RDi as the primary IDE, due to dramatic functionality improvements above ADTS, as well as significant improvement in developer productivity. This IDE will pay for itself in quick time, based on productivity improvements.

Fully free (RPG) code can only be maintained with RDi version 9.5 and later.

As a result of the reality that most SMB installations are using ADTS and based on our experience that a small percentage of installations that do use RDi are currently on RDi 9.5 or 9.6, ALL delivered code (until the latest releases of RDi become more freely available) MUST be usable and editable with ADTS and lower RDi releases than RDi 9.5.

If RDi 9.5 or 9.6 becomes more freely available from a cost perspective, it will be our preferred IDE. Until then, the code published in intERPrise must be editable, with FULL syntax checking, with both ADTS and earlier releases of RDi and WDSC. Not following this approach, means that we will exclude the bulk of the potential adopters, which does not make any commercial and other sense.

Additional to this, Mihael Schmidt has thankfully kindly agreed to make his MiWorkplace IDE available to developers that prefer a modern IDE, but cannot afford RDi. This IDE can be downloaded from https://miworkplace.com/index.php?content=download. Please read and follow the instructions on the website?