IBM Rational Developer for i is an integrated development environment (IDE) built on the Eclipse platform. Designed for creating and maintaining applications on IBM i systems, it resides on the developer’s desktop, supporting development in both host-connected and disconnected modes.
Rational Developer for i helps deliver more value from software development resources.
- Increased developer productivity —using a rich set of development tools.
- Increased business agility—by integrating the development tools into the widely used Eclipse framework, and by supporting multiple approaches to RPG and COBOL application modernization.
- Increased team efficiency— enabled through integration with IBM Rational Team Concert™ to support planning and management of the application lifecycle process.
- Flexible packaging— offers three different tool sets which include RPG and COBOL Tools, RPG and COBOL + Modernization Tools, Java Edition, and RPG and COBOL + Modernization Tools, EGL Edition. Each one of these toolsets comes with a range of licensing options to meet the needs of your development team.
Rational Developer for i : RPG and COBOL Tools
IBM’s strategic development IDE for IBM i RPG, COBOL, and CL developers. This product is based on Eclipse technology and is much lighter weight offering compatibility with more workstations and higher performance.
It includes new features such as the Application Diagram tool to analyze and diagram ILE programs. It also includes the new 5250 Screen and Report designer. RD Power provides complete end to end edit, compile, and interactive debug support for the RPG, COBOL, CL developer.
Rational Developer for i RPG and COBOL + Modernization Tools: EGL Edition
IBM’s entry to SOA for IBM i customers. This product is a bundle that includes RDi RPG and COBOL Tools and Rational Business Developer (RBD). It provides development tools for EGL (Enterprise Generation Language) IBM’s latest development language for IBM i, Power systems customers with the Web 2.0 integration and capabilities as well as the ability to create and consume services in an SOA environment.
This product also provides wizards to generate Web Services from RPG, COBOL, and other programs running in your IBM i environment.
NOTE: This tool will support development of HATS for 5250 applications. The HATS toolkit can be downloaded from DeveloperWorks for no charge.
Rational Developer i RPG and COBOL + Modernization tools, Java Edition
In addition to RPG and COBOL tools it includes a rich subset of the IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software offering. It therefore reflects several of the new V9.0 enhancements to that offering. These include support for the latest version of WebSphere Application Server Liberty profile and tools for developing web and mobile application front ends. IBM Worklight Studio is also included in the RDi Java Edition to support development of hybrid mobile applications. This offering is a strong solution for developing multitier, enterprise mobile, applications that integrate with back-end system deployed on IBM i.
Want more info on RDi? Check out our blog post: What you need to know… Licensing IBM RDi (Rational Developer for i) RPG & COBOL Tools