President's Message by Don Rima

Well, I was going to redo the format of the newsletter this month, but when faced with the options of redoing the format or going on vacation to Daytona Beach, well, that was kind of a no-brainer. Going on vacation has good points and bad ones. It’s really great to get away from the worlds greatest server and stick ones toes in the sand and lounge around the pool, but it’s really a bit of an awakening that you’ve been gone a while when you return to a email inbox of about 4029 emails. Fortunately, a bunch of those were the usual ones telling me how best to improve my life so to speak. Frankly, if any of that stuff worked I’d probably have already left the life of RPG long ago. But at the risk of sounding like Rodney Dangerfield, it’s good to be back home.

It was really glad to see the full house turnout for Alison Butterill’s presentation in April. I think that those attending had a really great evening. Frankly, I can tell that when a speaker continues talking until well after 9pm and nobody leaves, the speaker is really super. And nobody left.

This month we have yet another super speaker. Susan Gantner is our guest this month with a very timely topic for those of us in the iSeries realm. Details are below.

And before I forget, let me remind you of our seminar this month in Richmond, College Park and Philly with Susan Gantner on Life Beyond SEU - The New WDSc Toolset for RPG & COBOL Programmers. This seminar will focus specifically on the Development tool environment. We’ll be covering things like The Websphere development studio client, Code/400, using the Code/400 editor, The Code/400 Designer and debugger, the Remote System Explorer, Visual Age for RPG and a lot more. More details on our seminars page on the WAM website www.wash-midrange.org/seminars/ or call KB at 301.590.7121.

Speaking of seminars, we’re looking at what we could offer for one day topics in the fall and whom would be the best presenters. SO, if you have any good ideas on topics and presenters, please send me a email at dr2@cssas400.com and let me know what you’re thinking.

Folks, I hope to see all of you at WAM on the 20th. But, please make sure you RSVP NOW if you’re going to be there. We don’t want you to go hungry and if we don’t know you’re going to be there, we can’t tell the cooks to save you a plate. So, RSVP like they vote in Chicago -early and often.

May 2003 Meeting

Since many of the most useful APIs utilize User Spaces for their output, we will also look at how they are created and accessed, and how their usage can be simplified through the use of pointers.

You don't need to be afraid of using pointers. There are simple approaches to their use that open up a wide range of additional capabilities. We'll show you how with a number of examples of how to put them to use. One way in which pointers are often used is to access data in OS/400 User Spaces. This is an essential skill in order to utilize OS/400's "list type" APIs.

Susan's career has spanned over 24 years in the field of application development. She began as a programmer developing applications for corporations in Atlanta, Georgia, working with a variety of hardware and software platforms. She joined IBM in 1985 and quickly developed a close association with the Rochester laboratory during the development of the AS/400 system. Susan worked in Rochester, Minnesota for 5 years in the AS/400 Technical Support Center. She later moved to the IBM Toronto Software Laboratory to provide technical support for programming languages and AD tools on the AS/400. Susan left IBM in 1999 to devote more time to teaching and consulting. Her primary emphasis is on enabling customers to take advantage of the latest programming and database technologies on OS/400.

Susan is a regular speaker at COMMON conferences and other technical conferences around the world and holds a number of Speaker Excellence medals from COMMON

Tuesday May 20th, 2003
Holiday Inn in College Park, MD
US 1 and The Beltway, College Park, MD
6:00 PM Networking/Cash Bar 6:30 PM Dinner 7:10 PM Presentation