IBM i DevCon

I'd meant to do this earlier, but life gets in the way sometimes. Anyway, as many of you know two weeks ago IBM i DevCon was held in Las Vegas. As always, it was a great conference, but this year was a little different. It was held at Planet Hollywood (which is actually a pretty cool place), and the keynote speaker was Aaron Bartell.

Those of you who think the IBM i is devoid of young talent should take note: Aaron is one of the younger members of our community and is also one of its most fervent advocates. Aaron and I have argued mightily on occasion and we still have some fundamental disagreements on things, but his presentation was excellent and it gave me a lot of hope for the future of the platform.

And while DevCon is a very technical conference with lots of good solid information for tradional IBM i development, I did a bunch of sessions on Android and Java and SQL (and of course EGL) which were very well received. The i is not just a standalone RPG box anymore, and the future is as bright as it can be. Whether it's RPG OA or EGL or Android or something else, it's really time for the IBM i development community to figure out their next steps. Don't let the world pass you by. Start looking at the next couple of years and identifying how to position the box within your enterprise. It can either be a bit player or a central figure and what you do may help decide that.

Joe