Hello everybody
Since I am a firm believer that sharing our experience is one of our biggest strengths and most valuable asset we each have...I thought maybe someone could benefit from some recent experiences I have had with Bob. As someone who participated in the BOB POC earlier in the year, I have been looking forward to the day when the Premium Package for i was going to make its debut. And, THANKS to the Champion Program, I am now finally able to access this and give it a 'go' as they say. I am NOT a developer, not by any stretch of the imagination. I am a systems engineer who likes to write utilities and menus and even use IBM API's to make my life easier and/or to just solve a problem that we have. So, while I don't have any useful RPG experience, perhaps there's another IBM i admin/engineer out there that is wondering if BOB could be useful to them......
Short Answer...Yes...Depends..Maybe.. :-)
Where Bob Shined
When BOB first came out and was available as part of the POC, I used it a lot in ways IBM didn't necessarily plan on it being used...Which is GREAT, cause that opened a lot of other use cases for people like me to explore and to benefit from. One of the things I loved (besides the endless tokens) was that I could get Bob to help me organize all my ACS SQL Run Scripts that I had in a folder on my desktop. I had over 1100 scripts that were super disorganized and nearly impossible to find the "thing" I was looking for but knew it existed 'somewhere'. Bob was able to process all of those scripts and organize them into different folders/subfolders for me to use. It categorized them into various functional categories like Performance, Backup and Recovery, Database, etc etc etc. It was GREAT! I can now find the 'thing' I was looking for.
Another major win, while I like writing utility type programs, SQL Stored procedures and UDTFs are not my strong suit...Having Bob take a look at a few of those for me and rewrite them...that was absolutely AWESOME cause now, I don't have to decipher IBM's documentation or look for specific examples out there in the 'wild', I now have my own examples I can use , Thanks to BOB!
In a lot of ways, Bob has helped tremendously, both in uplifting some of my skillsets as well as making some good suggestions on some complex 'utility' programs I have.
Where it Got Rocky....
Unfortunately though, the Premium Package, has not given me the same kind of success. It might be that my expectations are not reasonable (won't be the first time I've heard that), or it could be that there's just more work to be done with the Premium Package in order for it to live up to its potential....Or maybe it's both my expectations need to be set properly AND there's work that needs to be done to make this tool better
In one case, I gave Bob a list of MTIs in a spreadsheet and asked him to search thru all my source members and note the index name used in the program and to update the spreadsheet with that info. While Bob did eventually complete that task, he had many many problems. Some were due to incorrect command syntax on his part; other issues had to do with how he was accessing the source members using SQL. It burned thru a lot of tokens on this request/use-case
Signs of Improvement
After reaching out to the IBM Dev Team for Bob, it was suggested that I update the Premium Package and give this use case another try...I am happy to say that after the update, Bob did better the 2nd time around with the above task (gave him another try - different MTIs to find etc). He used less tokens to complete it this time around; so that made me happy. He did, however, make up a new SQL Service called MEMBERDTL that he was going to use to search thru my source members which obviously didn't work out.
I expanded my use of Bob, still sticking with the CL and DB use case though...I gave him another task - gave him a 3rd set of MTIs (yes, different system) but this time, instead of updating a spreadsheet with the index name, I asked Bob to simply create me a new CL program that would create these indexes for me. I gave him a model CL Program to use and defined some 'rules' for him to follow. He was able to complete this without any issue or hallucinations and did pretty good here. I was happy with the results on this one and let the IBM team know as well.
Where It Fell Apart
A different use case/attempt to use the new Premium Package didn't go so well. This time, instead of focusing his attention on CL and Database items, I wanted to see what he could do to help me modernize some menus. Figured this was going to be a quick and cool win.........I gave Bob the name of the menu, the associated commands and programs along with where the source was. One of the instructions I gave him was to not MODIFY any of my existing source and to create me new source members. After he analyzed the request, he made some suggestions for being able to move the 5250-style menu to a web-based menu, either using Apache or IWS.....'Sold'....so I told him to go ahead. His first set of issues...attempting to create source member names longer than 10 characters long, he kept failing and could not figure out why. I had to remind him that he was on the IBM i and that there is a 10-char limit. Next set of issues....He told me that I didn't have IWS installed. Then he proceeded to make up a whole new License Program option specifically for IWS called 5770-DG1 Option 1. Well, needless to say, that was NEWS TO ME!
I told him to skip the IWS and just use standard Apache......Well, that proved to be just as problematic. He had issues with the RPG, he had issues with creating the Apache instance, he had issues running some SQL statements...another hallucination
He had a lot of other issues as well - see below screen shots as examples (def not the full list)
Bob finally 'finished' it, but in the end, he consumed all the tokens I had trying to take a simple 5250 menu with 4 options in it and converting it to a more modern web-based menu. I did get the Apache instance started and tested and unfortunately, every option I take comes back with the same error - Invalid Json Format. Not even sure where to start with that one but I might just give another AI tool a run at it to see if it can fix what Bob did here.
My Advice To Other Admins
Remind Bob that he is on the IBM i.
Remind him that data on the IBM i is in EBCIDIC.
Remind him that there is a 10-character limit when naming things
Remind him to check his sources and to verify IBM's documentation before stating something as 'fact'.
Remind him that he has to create the source member name before he is able to write to it.
Never allow him to modify any existing source - always use some suffix at the end of the name like a V2 or BOB etc.
Keep the scope small
Most importantly, Experimenting is your friend -its how we learn and grow - don't be afraid.
Final Thoughts
So, am I giving up on Bob - OH HECK NO! Bob and the Premium Package have TONS OF POTENTIAL and while I'm disappointed in how Bob handled some of my use cases, I do have confidence in the IBM Dev Team that they WILL MAKE THIS BETTER!
All of the above was fully documented for IBM and sent to the team that works on the Premium Package for i.
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Rich Malloy
Principal Systems Engineer - IBMi
Cox Automotive
Draper UT
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