RSE confusion

Reeve, always a pleasure to hear from you... although this would have been
good feedback for
us when you were in our beta. Never the less, I'll try to address some of
your comments ... those
within my reach...

RF>>I suspect the design team was pulled 90 degrees off course by some
suit who couldn't develop a hangover at a wake, much less an application.
PC>>Incorrect suspicion. Funny though!

RF>>I doubt IBM knows which way they're going...Today it's Eclipse; who
knows what "lunacy" it will be tomorrow?
PC>> In fact we do, and we do try to articulate it in articles,
conferences, postings ... such as
as at ignite400.org, in the July issue of iSeries magazine, at COMMON and
IBM Tech Conferences,
and so on. We are part way through our stated strategy that started with
consolidating the tools our
programming community uses and needs (VAJava, WebSphere Studio, VARPG,
CODE/400 and
WebFacing), then evolving them into a single "tightly integrated" offering
with rich support for teams
and third party extendibility. Eclipse gives us a base to do that... it was
the right thing at the right
time as far as we were concerned. Precisely the opposite of "lunacy".
Apparently the half a million
people who have downloaded it, and the hundreds of companies writing
plugins for it, agree.

RF>>If iSeries users aren't adopting these new tools, perhaps it's because
they're buggy or confusing.  Or maybe it's because they show up and there's
no continuity from one tool to another.
PC>>Ironically, this is precisely why we have "started over" with our AD
tools... we want to get it right.
PC>>We had a gaggle of loosely integrated tools with overlapping
functionality, authored in a myriad
PC>>of technlogies... from Smalltalk to C++. Each had their own UI
paradigm. This consolidation,
PC>>done around Eclipse, is an attempt to move past that era. We all agree
there is still work to be
PC>>done, and this is early days for the new frontier, but please be
patient. It may seem like we are
PC>>rapidly iterating products but we aren't: CODE existed for 10 years,
VARPG for 8.  True, VAJava
PC>>only existed for about 5 years and Studio for maybe 3, but these were
the perverbial straws that
PC>>strongly drove home to us the need for consolidation. Eclipse is a
strong foundation we can
PC>>now build on and live on for years ... as can our ISVs/BPs selling
plugins to it.

RF>>I've gotten sympathy and kind words but no results.  The Toronto group
RF>>does what Buell Duncan tells them to do, and it's anybody's guess after
RF>>that.
PC>>Interesting. Our team put in many hours working to help resolve your
problems, resulting in many
PC>>short-term fixes via service packs, and many long-term fixes in the new
RSE. I'd be interested to
PC>>how many of your problems still exist when using the RSE. You are
completely off base with the
PC>>Buell comment. And you don't have to guess at what we do... feel free
to ask or to visit us at our
PC>>new lab. We encourage it!

RF>>While RSE is clearly a major effort, I'll admit to wondering why it's
shown
up and how it helps me (an application developer) or my customers (most of
whom have single systems).
PC>>Again, this would have been good beta feedback. Basically, the RSE will
eventually replace the
PC>>CODE Project Organizer, and the Lpex editor within it will eventually
replace the CODE Editor. The
PC>>debugger you see now will also eventually disappear. All of CODE is
being replaced over time with
PC>>Eclipse versions, but we won't delete the CODE tools until after we
have surpassed their functionality.
PC>>For non-CODE users, think of the RSE as the modern PDM... keeping in
mind this is its first release.
PC>>Customers have long asked for a true IDE for RPG/CBL development,
versus separate tools like
PC>>CODE offers. This is the first phase of that... and we have only just
started so please be patient.
PC>>In addressing long-standing requirements, we added full support for
IFS. We also do have customers
PC>>using Linux LPAR so added that. The backend code for both these was
common Java code, so
PC>>supporting any unix/windows remote system became trivial so we put it
in. We also do have customers
PC>>with windows and unix and linux servers ... those other eServer
platforms. Again, "believe it or not".
PC>>There was no "suit" driving this idea.

RF>>We see consistent enhancements to ILE RPG; this is one bright area.
Phil,
George, Barbara, Hans and others: thanks!
PC>>On behalf of the RPG team, you're welcome! This bears out that we still
believe in and promote RPG!
PC>>As does this completely new toolset for RPG, that we are building from
scratch.

RF>>I think most of us in the iSeries environment have *no interest at all*
in a
standardized, cross-platform development toolset.  The iSeries is unique
PC>>First, don't think of WDSc "cross-platform" as much as it is
"cross-skills". It is only for iSeries customers,
PC>>and you are only licensed to use it for iSeries development. Second, we
have been lobbied hard for
PC>>many years to ensure that the iSeries "keeps up" with the tools and
technologies and innovations that
PC>>happen in the rest of the company, and not be treated so much as a
"one-off" orphan. We have listened.
PC>>Yes, we need very rich RPG/COBOL tools, and you will see those evolve
now with each release. I would
PC>>not accept however that iSeries customers don't need or want awesome
tools for Java, Web, XML,
PC>>Web Services and Database. That is not what customers and BPs are
telling me. They say this needs to
PC>>be an awesome development platform for not only RPG/CBL, but the new
technologies too... and the new
PC>>applications and customers they bring along. Not to mention those
college programmers. We also
PC>>hear over and over about various "camps" at customers sites, and how
the "unix" or "windows" or "web"
PC>>team thinks of the iSeries team as aliens, and vice versa. Common
tooling for all might help with this
PC>>and close the perception of alien worlds. Our strategy talks about the
need to break down these
PC>>barriers and foster a tighter "community". We want the iSeries
programming teams to win more of those
PC>>internal fights for the new corporate missions ... not be excluded
because of perception they are "old
PC>>programmers using strange tools to write column-sensitive code".

RF>>I have no interest in Java-for-the-sake-of-Java, which seems to be
IBM's
RF>>litany.  Or is it Linux-for-the-sake-of-Linux?
PC>>Can you elaborate why you feel this is our litany? I feel quite the
opposite...
PC>>that we have gone out of our way to preach the right tool/technology
for the
PC>>job. That often/usually means Java for the 2nd tier, RPG for the 3rd.
For our
PC>>BPs/ISVs looking to author new cross-platform apps, that often/usually
means
PC>>Java across the board, and Linux as the reference platform. Linux on an
LPAR is
PC>>also an awesome solution to replace PC server farms. We need to support
them
PC>>all. Don't take that too hard.

RF>>IBM needs to fix CODE... It's sad that IBM was so far in front of the
pack.
PC>>RSE is the strategic replacement of CODE ... we started with a clean
slate and
PC>>we are highly anxious to "get it right" this time. To do that we need
your feedback,
PC>>so we do appreciate hearing your thoughts. I am sure my note will spur
some :-)


Phil Coulthard, iSeries Software Architect,  IBM Canada Ltd.
coulthar@ca.ibm.com. 905-413-4076, t/l 969-4076