Putting IBM i BOB Through Its Paces
My First Real Test of the New AI Assistant
Artificial intelligence has been creeping steadily into the IBM i ecosystem for a while, but the arrival of IBM i BOB marks a notable shift: an AI assistant designed specifically for our platform, our tooling and our way of working. As someone who has spent more than four decades building, modernising and teaching IBM i development, I’m naturally sceptical of anything claiming to “write RPG for you.” But I’m also curious. If AI can meaningfully accelerate routine development tasks, without compromising quality or maintainability, it deserves a fair trial.
So I decided to put BOB through its paces with a deliberately small, deliberately vague brief. No hand‑holding, no detailed specification, no schema dump. Just enough information to see whether BOB could interpret the intent and produce something genuinely useful.
My prompt was intentionally simple:
In the library called LIBRARY, I have a table called BOOKP. This table needs an RPG program to allow users to maintain this table. The source needs to reside in the IFS directory /libbob/qrpglesrc.
That’s it. No DDS. No SQL definition. No field list. No UI requirements. No workflow description. Just the kind of minimal request you might hear shouted across an office: “Can you knock up a quick maintenance program for BOOKP?”
Before i get moaned about calling a library LIBRARY, it holds traditional library material, books, membership etc.
What BOB Produced
To my surprise and slight amusement, BOB didn’t complain. It didn’t ask for a schema. It didn’t demand a full specification. Instead, it made reasonable assumptions, generated a maintainable RPGLE program and placed it in the correct IFS path exactly as instructed.
The generated program followed modern free‑format RPG conventions, used SQL for data access and provided a simple but functional command‑line maintenance loop.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was structurally sound. More importantly, it was contextually aware: BOB understood that a “maintenance program” implies add, update, delete and list operations, even though I never explicitly said so.
This is where BOB begins to feel different from generic AI tools. It isn’t guessing blindly. It understands IBM i idioms, RPG patterns and the expectations of a typical CRUD maintenance utility.
It knows that source in /libbob/qrpglesrc implies an IFS‑based development workflow. It knows that a table in LIBRARY called BOOKP is almost certainly a physical file with a handful of fields representing book metadata. It fills in the blanks sensibly.
Strengths That Stood Out
- Contextual Awareness of IBM i Conventions
BOB’s biggest strength is its understanding of IBM i norms. When you say “maintenance program,” it doesn’t produce a web UI or a Node.js script, it produces RPG. When you specify a library, it uses it. When you mention the IFS, it writes source members to the correct directory structure.
This contextual grounding is something generic AI tools simply don’t have.
- Modern RPG Practices
The generated code wasn’t stuck in 1995. It used:
- Fully free RPG
- Embedded SQL
- Clear procedure structure
- Sensible naming conventions
For developers still transitioning from fixed‑format RPG, BOB could become a powerful learning companion.
- A Willingness to Assume Sensibly
AI tools often freeze when information is missing. BOB doesn’t. It makes assumptions, but they’re the same assumptions a human IBM i developer would make when asked to “just knock something together.”
That’s a refreshing change.
Where BOB Still Needs Work
Let’s be honest: BOB isn’t going to replace an experienced RPG developer any time soon. Nor should it. The generated program was functional, but not production‑ready. It lacked:
- Robust error handling
- Logging
- Validation
- User‑friendly messaging
- Integration with existing application frameworks
In other words, BOB can produce a skeleton, but it still needs a human to turn that skeleton into a fully‑fledged application.
And that’s fine. Tools like this should accelerate development, not replace craftsmanship.
Why This Matters for the IBM i Community
The IBM i platform has always thrived on strong tooling. SEU, PDM, RDi, VS Code extensions, each has moved the needle in its own way. BOB represents the next evolution: AI‑assisted development tailored specifically for our environment.
- For new developers, BOB can act as a tutor.
- For experienced developers, it can eliminate boilerplate.
- For teams, it can standardise patterns and accelerate prototyping.
And for the platform as a whole, it signals something important: IBM i is not being left behind in the AI wave. We’re embracing it on our own terms.
Final Thoughts
My first experience with IBM i BOB was surprisingly positive. It handled a deliberately vague brief with confidence, produced usable RPG source and demonstrated a genuine understanding of IBM i development practices.
It’s not perfect, but it’s promising, very promising.
If BOB continues to evolve, it could become one of the most valuable tools in the IBM i developer’s toolbox: not a replacement for skill, but an amplifier of it.
And that’s exactly the kind of innovation our community needs.