Introducing WebSmart for Node.js Beta

When IBM announced that Node.js would be joining the ranks of open source languages available on the IBM i, it created a great deal of excitement in the IBM i developer community.

Building on the success of the WebSmart tool for rapidly developing web and mobile applications on the IBM i, BCD Software (now Fresche Solutions) has announced the launch of WebSmart for Node.js Beta, which will be available later on this month – and on general release in the next three months.

Node.js is an open-source server-side JavaScript runtime engine, which has, since mid-November 2014 been supported on both the IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh (TR) 9 and IBM i 7.2 TR1. Several large companies, including Walmart, Paypal, LinkedIn, Netflix and Yahoo use Node.js.

WebSmart Node.js will provide templates which will enable IBM i developers to jump-start open-source web and mobile application development by generating the initial HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Developers can then customise the Node.js applications for their business needs in the WebSmart IDE.

About WebSmart for Node.js Beta:

• Currently intended exclusively for development environments
• Templates produce server-side JavaScript
• Built with Bootstrap, a responsive, mobile framework that uses a single code base for the desktop and mobile versions
• You can use the Node.js Toolkit for IBM i to leverage RPG resources such as RPG programs

Marcel Sarrasin, vice president of marketing for BCD and Quadrant Software (now known together as Fresche Solutions) told IT Jungle:

“It’s early in the market for Node in the IBM i community, but it reminds me of where PHP was when it started”.

Node.js joins the stable of open source tools that are available in the IBM i, which includes PHP, MySQL and Ruby on Rails.

BCD Software first started supporting PHP on the IBM i in 2007.

Node.js is as equally at home on Windows, Linux, IBM AIX and IBM System x platforms as it is now on the IBM i.

Sign up for WebSmart for Node.js Beta.

You can find further information on Node.js for i on the IBM Developer Works wiki page.

If you are interested in finding out a little more about Node.js on the IBM i, you can join Tim Rowe, business architect for application development for IBM i, open-source expert Aaron Bartell and BCD’s chief knowledge officer Duncan Kenzie for an introduction to Node.js webinar on 3rd March 2016.

For more information on software technologies, why not read Proximity’s blog post entitled Programming languages, databases and software libraries: adopting new technologies for software development.