Going into any process where you are spending money on training, the concern is always whether you will get value received for the money you spend. I can say without a doubt that we got that value and more from imPower Technologies and Jim Buck. The classes were great. They were very detailed and comprehensive. I spoke with my new hire Programmer trainee, who had no previous RPG experience, several times during the process and his responses about the classes were always positive and he was impressed. I think Jim is both down to earth in his engagement during the process, and very knowledgeable.
I have been an RPG programmer for 41 years and it was amazing to see our young trainee grasp knowledge that put him ahead of even me after all this time.
Overall, on a scale of 1-10, I would rate the classes and the process as a 10. I seldom give 10 ratings, but I think this case warrants an exception.
Thanks to Jim and his company for providing training that will yield a very valuable asset to our company, that we will realize for many years to come.
Allan Mortenson
Vice President, Information Technology
Burgers’ Smokehouse
Prior to enrollment in Jim’s imPower RPG Programming class, my 5+ years of experience as a programmer was almost exclusively in vb.net web apps. I had some experience using the AS400 but never programmed in RPG. I spent some time trying to learn RPG on my own, but it proved difficult to find both hands-on exercises and how to utilize the more modern tools available. I’m beyond thankful my employer found this class and was wiling to make the investment to enroll me. I appreciate Jim’s teaching style – down to earth – he cares about students retaining information and mastering concepts.
The programming exercises are cleverly designed. I had “ah ha” moments with all of them learning what to do and what not to do. The hands-on work was my favorite part of the course. There is no substitute for the resources (example programs, test data, etc.) you’re given access to with the student account, such as how to leverage the RDi development environment. My RPG developer experience now is a lot better than I ever thought it would be based on my initial impressions. Not to mention the end of the course opened the door on how we can use our existing RPG programs and data in a browser environment.
We now have a brand new, burgeoning intranet site. I give my highest recommendation to this course for anyone in need to learn RPG programming.
Thank you, Jim!
“Jim’s courses were the perfect solution in my transition from an end-user on the IBM i platform to a developer of our programs and business logic. There was and continues to be tremendous value to our business in modernizing older RPG code to take advantage of SQL and other tools to improve processes. I’ve been able to take several examples from the course and put them into use for us. Outside of the courses, Jim went above and beyond to help with questions I had and programming projects I was working on. If you’re looking to train developers and bring value to your IBM i driven business there’s no better place to turn.”
This class was a great introduction to the RPG language, RDi, and the IBMi in general. The class is online and you are able to move at your pace which I enjoyed. The videos are very easy to follow and the programming examples allow you to practice the techniques that were just introduced. Jim provides many sample programs that you can access and use when working on your assignments. There is a weekly meeting with Jim and other students where you can ask questions and learn from others that are taking the class. By the end of the class, I felt comfortable coding in RPG and even viewing existing programs at my company and following the code.
This class is detailed enough for a brand new programmer to learn not only the language, but basic programming concepts, while also being fast paced enough that an experienced programmer would not be bored learning the language. I highly recommend this class for anyone needing to learn RPG and the IBMi.
Overall, I enjoyed very much Jim’s RPG online classes and very appreciate Jim and Michelle’s afford to make this RPG class easy to understand and can be quickly get into the RPG world.
Thank Jim and Michelle very much!
I had been programming in PICK or uniVerse for about 28 years. After starting to work for RAE Corporation, I needed to learn the IBM i system and RPG as quick as possible. I had been looking online and was not finding the information I needed, but thankfully I found imPower Technologies. Jim Buck and Michelle Lyons have put together a wonderful program. The IBM i Concepts and Programming in ILE RPG classes were a great help to me. I can truly say Jim wants his students to be successful. The time he spends with his students, past and present, during the Weekly Webex meetings prove that. Keep up the good work Jim and Michelle! It is needed!
Well shortly after that conference, the need did arise and I did remember about imPower Technologies.
I just wanted to let you know what an outstanding online course (Programming in ILE RPG) that imPower Technologies teaches is. To take a person with no programming experience but with a desire to learn and turn them into a junior programmer in just a matter of months is remarkable.
I like the fact they are able to do this at their own pace but you make sure they stay on track. The progress reports and updates I received from imPower Technologies as he progressed though the course was great. This gave me a real good idea how things were going.
He has already finished a couple of projects and is really enjoying programming.
I would highly recommend this course. I plan to send others through this course in the future.
We are a company that has had one main IBMi Operator / RPG Programmer for decades. As he faces retirement, we found the ability to hire new programmers to be very difficult. We finally settled on a new hire that has no programming experience to become our new developer. We started his training by putting him on a different training course that consisted of audio tapes. Although this course was a good introduction to operating the IBMi, it was outdated on the RPG programming side.
In our search for an alternative to the audio tapes, we found imPower Technologies. This was an actual course with live meetups and homework! This was a fit for our needs, and the results show it. Since taking your course, we have been able to get him involved with some ambitious projects that allow our field operations to generate and update work orders on their tablets while in the field. He is also working on a program to control and maintain inventory and equipment.
Apart from being a valuable learning resource, I can tell you that our new hire really enjoyed his time in this class. The weekly meetups were encouraging, the assignments were challenging and helpful. A lot of work was put into the examples and assignments, and it is clearly paying off.
I am a new programmer that is still in college for programming. I “lucked out” in finding a job with Rogers Water Utilities. They are a company that uses the IBM I system and a single programmer to develop all of their software. I was thrilled to get a job in my field of study but overwhelmed at how much there was to learn with the IBM. I quickly realized that just operating the system (let alone programming it) was very different than anything I was used to. I learned a few basics with the archaic audio tape training, but a lot of the material didn’t apply to modern IBM Power systems (I literally learned how to install IBM clients on Twinax cable).
The imPower Technologies RPG class was a different story. Not only did it teach the most modern RPG coding skills, but also saves you from the pain of figuring how to set up RDI, how to navigate the green screen and it demystifies the compiling process of a bunch of RPG modules. These things can all be road-blocks to one’s success in learning RPG. It isn’t as simple as throwing source code into an IDE and hitting run. Jim Buck removes these road blocks with a carefully structured course that holds your hand through the system as you learn to code in RPG. The weekly meetups are where he will personally walk you through a program or a problem that you may be experiencing.
If you are a company that is hiring new programmers to keep your RPG environment cranking on all cylinders, do not make the mistake of supplying your employee with a book or stack of audio tapes to learn from. There are many things that have to be figured out and skills that must be acquired when new to an IBM system. Learning how to code in RPG won’t be enough if I can’t check my spool file, or run a simple query to validate my program, or deal with system error codes. Jim Buck will get your workforce on the right path.
ImPower provides a hands-on learning experience that will prepare you to use the latest RPG tools and techniques employers are looking for. Take this class and learn from Jim Buck, one of the best trainers in the IBM application development community. The class runs over around a ten-week period and there’s plenty of personalized attention. I lost my last position due to a corporate reorganization. It only took a couple of weeks after ending Jim’s class for me to land a new position. It was a super experience and the ImPower process is much more effective than a one-week boot camp. I highly recommend ImPower for training that provides high value at a reasonable price.
In just 5 months, we’ve got all 4 junior programmers working on different types of projects. All are showing a great understanding of programming logic, RPG programming, CL programs, RDI and the IBM iSeries in general. They are so far ahead of our expectations that we truly couldn’t be happier with the results we’ve seen. Because they were allowed to progress at their own pace, two of them were already working on projects in just 2 months!
The results we’ve seen and the understanding into programming that these new programmers have gained from your class has been amazing. To take 4 non-programmers and turn all 4 into Junior RPG developers in such a short time has been a huge help to our department. We appreciate all that you did to help our new people become productive employees and look forward to working with you again in the future.
Over the years it has become harder and harder to find talented RPG developers especially ones with the drive and excitement to take on new technologies. Along with ILE we are using SOAP and REST web services, PHP, XML, HTTP and JavaScript to build more modern applications and interfaces. We needed to find employees to support our growth and it was at the fall COMMON User Group conference in Pittsburg last year that I met Jim and heard about his company and its mission.
At the conference I met with a group of young developers, new to the IBM i, and was very pleased to see their enthusiasm about our system. These developers came from a variety of technical backgrounds, .Net, Java, etc., but all were now working at IBM i shops. The common thread for these developers was that they had gone thru Jim’s courses to help get them up to speed on ILE, CLLE, RDi, DB2 and our very amazing operating system.
I got home from the conference and convinced upper management here at MBI that this was a very viable approach to addressing our staffing needs. Approval was given and I immediately started working with local agencies to find non-ILE talent interested in adding IBM i to their skillset. In February 2019 we found and hired Laura an experienced developer with C#, MVC, .Net and JavaScript experience. She immediately started taking Jim’s courses ‘IBM i Concepts and Operations’ and ‘Programming in ILE RPG’.
By mid-April Laura had completed the on-line courses. She was an active participant in their weekly online group sessions and she got timely and effective support from Jim and his team. imPower was effective in keeping me abreast of Laura’s progress so that I could feed her appropriate assignments to reinforce her education.
Laura has taken her new knowledge and become a contributing member of our team. We are only three months past the formal education phase and I am pleased to be able to report to both Jim and my management that this has proven to be very effective solution. I highly recommend Jim and his company’s on-line education offerings and would be glad to talk one-on-one with anyone considering taking this approach.