iSeries beginner level books

[Cristian Remus]

Hello,

I’ve been given the opportunity to learn to be an iSeries system engineer at the company I work for. I’ve been given an iSeries machine TYPE: 9406 with V5R4 OS. I’ve never had contact with the IMB OS before so this is all very new to me, but I find it very interesting and want to pursue it further.

The issue is that there are no available IBM I training programs in my country so I will have to travel to another site our company has to get training. As you may imagine I don’t want to go there and have to get training on how to turn it on, what’s a job, what’s a subsystem, etc. I would like to make the best of the available training time, so I want to learn as much as I can out of the “basic” stuff. Unfortunately besides IBM I redbooks, my company doesn’t have any “beginner” books that I can study.

The question: Can you guys give me or point me to some really beginner level books for the AS400/iSeries systems ? PDFs or ebooks would be the best, but I wouldn’t be picky as a last resort. I need something that addresses the absolute beginner and brakes down information in an educational way.


Any help would highly be appreciated !

Thank you in advance for all your help and sorry about my English, but It’s not my native language, but I’m trying 
CristianR

[tomliotta]

Re: iSeries beginner level books

I don't actually know of any 'beginner' books for the AS/400 series. I haven't looked at books about the system since reading the first edition of 'Inside the AS/400' by Frank Soltis. (I have used a reference book for some Qshell stuff, 'Qshell for iSeries' by Ted Holt and Fred Kulack; I had reasons for that. Ted drops by this forum from time to time.)

What I use is almost always the Information Center first. I suggest that you become very familiar with how it's organized and how to use it.

For example, you might want to look through the Basic system operations topic. Read it on-line, or download it as a .PDF. And you might want to browse through the various Experience reports. I think each one is provided as a .PDF.

Regardless, you should expand a number of the navigation pane nodes and do some exploring there. The amount of info is pretty big, but a lot of pages are short and basic. Just about all background info you're going to need for some time to come can be found there. For practical experience knowledge, most general "How do I use this info..." kind of questions can usually be handled in this forum.

[tomholden]

Re: iSeries beginner level books

i might be worth you & your companies time & money to invest in WBT software. Manta has some very good stuff you might want to check out (i'm not a salesman just someone who has used the products before) http://www.mantatech.com/

[jason.aleski]

Re: iSeries beginner level books

Cristian,

I was in the same position a year ago, coming into an IBMi Shop with no experience. The books that have helped me were:

Mastering IBMi by Jim Buck and Jerry Fottral
Free-Format RPG IV - Jim Martin

I was fortunate that my company paid for some self-paced Computer Based Training from Lab400. Most of the training was painful to go though. My biggest complaint was that some of the training was old and out-dated; showing older methods of doing things, when no one does it that way due to newer tools. If you have some RPG II/III or System38 code still around, the training classes were useful in those subject areas. However, most of that code I'm re-writing it to RPG IV/Free. I'm sure some of their newer training is better, but make sure you find out when the last time the materials were updated!

One of the biggest things I like about the IBMi is code that was written from 1982 is still working great with code written today. And yes, I just had to re-write a program from 1982! However, that is also a bad thing. Most technology today, you learn the current version or working version and you are good. However, if you have an existing IBMi system that has been part of your company for years, you not only need to know the current technology, but the past technology, too. Too many times, I look at code or operational procedures and wonder why in the &*#^ did they do it that way; then have to realize the features that made a particular task easier didn't exist back then.

I still consider myself a newbie when it comes to the IBMi. There are many times that I get frustrated because I still have trouble getting my head wrapped around how everything is connected but works independently. Most of the problems I'm facing now, mainly revolve around the business operations/procedures and why we do certain things; as opposed to the technology used. You will get frustrated. You will think like a lot of people who do not have an appreciation/experience with the IBMi, "this is a legacy piece of crap that needs to go!" But the more I work with this system the more I am impressed with it.

--JA

[Cristian Remus]

Re: iSeries beginner level books

Hello all,


Thank you all for your replies! They've been real helpful. My sister just left for the states for one month so I'm going to order some books for her to bring me when she comes back. I'm considering the two jason.aleski said helped him. Also, some people said that this one is pretty good:

Understanding the AS/400

I'm trying to do basic stuff but it's so hard when you have to research each term because you don't know anything.. It took me 2 days to configure a VIP on the machine, just because there was no option on the green screen to activate ARP proxy.. I'm trying now to configure a Xerox WorkCentre 7830 printer and it's not going well

I'm not even to the programming part... But I'll fight my battles one at a time, first of all, I want to be able to do basic stuff and know my way around the machine itself...

I'm hoping with time and some books I'll be better at this


Thanks for everything,
Cristian.

P.S. I'm will to hear any advice you may have for an absolute beginner