June 15, 2026

IBM i shops that rely on PTC’s Implementer software to manage their RPG development will soon be able to use the tool within the VS Code development environment. The upcoming release of Implementer 12.7 will introduce several other important features as PTC begins the process of modernizing the tool.

Implementer is a well-established change management system targeting the IBM i environment. The software traces its roots to 1987, when four Pansophic (creators of the PRMS ERP system now owned by Infor) employees founded Silvon Software in Chicago. One of their first products was a tool to manage source code development and deployment, called Implementer. Silvon sold Implementer to the Markham, Toronto-based Mortice Kearns Systems (MKS) in 1998, and MKS was bought by PTC, a Boston-based developer of CAD software, for $292.5 million Canadian in 2011.

PTC has released updates to Implementer throughout the years. It shipped version 11.0 in 2014, version 12.0 in 2017, and 12.5 in 2021. This year, it’s gearing up for 12.7, which the company aims to deliver during the third quarter of the year.

The delivery of an extension for VS Code arguably is the biggest new feature in Implementer 12.7. VS Code has quickly become a very popular development tool in the IBM i community, thanks largely to Liam Allan’s creation of the Code for i plug-in, as well as the subsequent embrace of VS Code by IBM.

Surveys, such as Fortra’s most recent IBM i Marketplace Survey, show that the free, Web-based VS Code has surpassed the thick client (and definitely not free) Rational Developer for i (RDi) from IBM as the most widely used integrated development environment (IDE) on the IBM i platform, although green screen development tools are still more popular than either (SEU and PDM will never die).

While PTC is not the first change management vendor to support VS Code, the company is jumping into VS Code with both feet with the release of Implementer 12.7. “This was a massive effort,” Alan Brown, PTC’s software development manager, told IT Jungle. “We didn’t do a half-hearted attempt at this. We went all out on this one.”

When 12.7 ships later this year, developers who use VS Code will find a fully baked interface that supports all of their IBM i change management needs, Brown said. “Everything that RDi extension does today is available in the Visual Studio Code extension now,” he said. (There are two exceptions, Brown explained, but since they pertain to Implementer’s support for thick client interfaces, they don’t really matter in the Web-based VS Code world.)

PTC is continuing to support RDi, as the company still has many IBM i shops who develop using IBM’s preferred IDE. The company has added support for the latest release of RDi, version 9.9, with Implementer 12.7.

“It became very clear [a year ago] that VS Code was going to be the platform,” Brown said. “So that’s when we decided to bite the bullet and move away from RDi. And it seems to be IBM’s position now, too, that while not yet deprecated, I really think they’re not focusing on RDi in the same way that they have been.”

As a whole, IBM i customers tend not to move quickly to the next new thing, which is why PTC still has such a large and dedicated group of green screen users. There’s a lot to be said for giving your paying customers what they want, and PTC is doing that. However, the company is also looking to the future, and neither RDi nor the green screen development tools appear to be how younger developers will develop code.

“What we’re concerned about is new customers with younger developers who aren’t going to want to use RDi. They’re not going to want to use green screen,” Brown said. “Those are the ones that we need to focus on.”

Implementer 12.7 also brings support for IBM i 7.6, which IBM released a year ago. It’s also supporting IBM’s latest operating system release with Implementer 12.6, which PTC shipped in January 2024. The new release of the change management system also stepped up its Java support. Implementer 12.6 required Java 11, but 12.7 now requires Java 17 at a minimum and will also work with Java 21, both long-term releases, Brown said.

Here’s another sizable new feature in Implementer 12.7: A new RESTful API. This will allow enable customers to build all sorts of integrations into open source or commercial offerings, said Brian Anderson, a PTC tech support manager. “If users want to tie into a particular ticketing system they’re using, they can use RESTful APIs to tie the two products together,” he said.

The capability to tie code developed by AI co-pilots, such as IBM’s Bob or Anthropic’s Claude, is something that change management vendors are starting to talk about. Many of PTC’s competitors are leaning on support for the Git version control system to support things like Bob and Claude. PTC does not support Git at this point with Implementer, but the new REST API can also be a bridge to AI co-pilots, Brown said.

“Why wouldn’t Bob or a copilot just use our exposed RESTful API technology, exposed through VS Code, to take an action, to check out or to promote?” Brown asked. “Git is one of the ways in which you could get gain access to AI, it doesn’t mean there aren’t AI use cases that don’t need Git, that could use Implementer.”

Implementer also brings more support for SQL, as well as its new Web UI version 2. The Implementer’s first Web UI is not widely used at this point, but Implementer users will start seeing the value of it with Web UI V2, according to Anderson.

“Right now, it’s pretty much for admin functionality,” Anderson said. “Instead of going to green screen, you can set up your environments [in the Web UI], you can set up your users, projects, things like that from the Web UI versus going to the green screen. As we expand this people will start seeing the value.”

The new release also brings some security improvements, including SSL server support and a Log4J update. The Java-based product is now using at a minimum Log4J 2.17.1, which isn’t impacted by the Log4Shell vulnerability, which scored a perfect 10 out of 10 on the CVSS v3 scale when it was disclosed back in December 2021.

“We run that stuff through Black Duck to do proper security analysis,” Brown said. “All of the stuff gets processed through Black Duck, so we know what vulnerabilities may exist in the versions we’re using in development.

Development of Implementer 12.7 is done, but testing is still ongoing. The company is targeting the GA of the product by the end of summer. For more information, see www.ptc.com.

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