Develop Visual Studio Code Extension for RPG

The CAAC has reviewed this requirement and recommends that IBM view this as a high priority requirement that is important to be addressed. New students coming out of school are used to Visual Studio, so it would reduce the training time to get them onto IBM i.

Background: The COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) members have a broad range of experience in working with small and medium-sized IBM i customers. CAAC has a key role in working with IBM i development to help assess the value and impact of individual RFEs on the broader IBM i community, and has therefore reviewed your RFE.

For more information about CAAC, see www.common.org/caac

Nancy Uthke-Schmucki - CAAC Program Manager

IMHO a thing is clear here: IBM should embed in the platform an "istitutional" editor to relay upon, that we know to be present.
Would be best served via web, centrally, like SEU (nowadays you can create great things via web, even 3d...).

We definitely need a SEU 2.0.

Visual Studio is excellent... but we will tend to fragment the user base.

One of the great things about SEU 5250 is not technical, but it being "inside" the system and served centrally (no install): almost anyone knows it and can rely to be on the system.


Bring us a web based (nodejs or other tech) SEU 2.0, cmon! ;)

Any system is defined by its developers - and we need the new generation of programmers to learn about our platform.

So any tool that can help attracting and educating new developers is a bonus to IBM i. This is what creating an IBM i extension for VS Code is all about.

The IBM i "big brother" IBM Z folks have realized this and have created IBM Z Open Editor (https://ibm.github.io/zopeneditor-about/), an extension for VS Code supporting the languages on z/OS. So why not follow their footsteps?

Having a free tool for programming on IBM i (VS Code with IBM i extension) and a free IBM i instance to run the programs (like https://pub400.com/) would be very beneficial to and expand the knowledge of our platform.

better Eclipse Theia instead of VS

The CEAC has reviewed this requirement and recommends that IBM view this as a “nice to have” LOW priority feature.
IBM should focus on developing tooling/plugins/ API to make it easier for developers and open source communities.

Background: The COMMON Europe Advisory Council (CEAC) members have a broad range of experience in working with small and medium-sized IBM i customers. CEAC has a crucial role in working with IBM i development to help assess the value and impact of individual RFEs on the broader IBM i community and has therefore reviewed your RFE.

To find out how CEAC help to shape the future of IBM i, see CEAC @ ibm.biz/BdYSYj and the article "The Five Hottest IBM i RFEs Of The Quarter" at ibm.biz/BdYSZT

Therese Eaton – CEAC Program Manager, IBM

IBM will use this request as input to planning but no commitment is made or implied. This request will be updated in the future if IBM implements it.

Debugging would be essential to consider a VS Code extension usable.

Due to processing by IBM, this request was reassigned to have the following updated attributes:
Brand - Servers and Systems Software
Product family - Power Systems
Product - IBM i
Component - Application Development
Operating system - IBM i
Source - None

For recording keeping, the previous attributes were:
Brand - Servers and Systems Software
Product family - Programming Languages
Product - Developer for Power Systems
Component - RPG/COBOL Development Tools
Operating system - IBM i
Source - None

One thing that might be useful is for IBM to open up the debug APIs used by RDI.

I didn't develop the plugin but I believe live debug would be a nice add to the Halcyon plugin.

A open source plugin is already under development.
Check it out here: https://github.com/halcyon-tech/code-for-ibmi

Already available
https://github.com/halcyon-tech/code-for-ibmi

Already available
https://github.com/halcyon-tech/code-for-ibmi

For reference, someone has just started work on such an extension: https://github.com/halcyon-tech/code-for-ibmi

Interesting. I too am a long-time VS Code user, and a decades-long Visual Studio user.
I mostly code in C/C++ for IBM i today and use RDi for that, but I do cut/paste into Visual Studio Code when I want to find something that RDi just doesn't show me.
I know there are one or two RPG extensions already available, for VS Code, but having one built and maintained by Toronto would be awesome.

This is a very valid RFE. I think it should be reclassified to "servers and system / IBM i" for carrying more traction in our specific community.

I love the idea of getting something IBM-made. One of the hardest things of learning IBM i and RPG as a web developer was the completely foreign operating system and code editor (SEU). I think that creating a basic VS Code extension for RPG(LE) with syntax highlighting and language server protocol would greatly lower the learning curve for younger IBM i developers and keep the platform growing.

A SUPERB request IMHO that will add significant impetus to attracting young developers (and not so young) to the platform, as RDi's cost, is prohibitive to true SMB installations and the uninformed developers who have not yet being exposed to our incredible platform.

Please consider this kindly and with an open mind?

I think this is a good idea. Long-term, I think that migrating RDi from Eclipse to Visual Studio deserves attention.