Re: Jon Paris post

Jon Paris wrote:

One of the major issues I face with EGL is the App Server dependency. Of the customers I have worked with recently (not counting those I meet at conferences) well over 50% are already committed to .Net. In a couple of cases there were problems even getting WDSC usage authorized because the dreaded "WebSphere" word sent the Microsofties apoplectic at the threat to their fiefdom! And yes I am being serious - we had one class put on hold for quite a while until they could deal with that issue.

If your clients are using .NET as their web enabling approach, then you are going to have to deal with that. IBM isn't going to fix that, nor should they. People who choose .NET get exactly what they choose. If the Microsoft advocates have that sort of sway over the shop, then DB2 and the i aren't long for that location anyway.

In fact, the only thing that *could* sway them would be the incredible capabilities of EGL, which already outstrip anything in Visual Studio, and will soon be light years ahead, primarily because of the adoption of popular frameworks. Where EGL will be allowing developers to quickly create platform agnostic rich interface applications using things like GWTx, Microsoft will be trying to ram the non-crossplatform Silverlight down their throats.

In such cases, tools like RPG-CGI and even PHP are often an option as they can be introduced on a "stealth" basis (When there is no charge for something you don't have to get it authorized!).

If you can't convince your clients of the benefits of a cross-platform, end-to-end single-language solution, then it doesn't matter what you do. RPG-CGI or PHP will be a bad holding pattern until the data gets moved to SQL Server. In my opinion, you need to be expounding on the benefits of the IBM vision, which is a single integrated tool suite that supports development for all your platforms, rather than taking them down a technically inferior road such as PHP.

Tomcat might work on the same principal, but WAS just ain't gonna happen. I guess that now that the built-in app server is supported for EGL that it may provide an answer too, but will scalability then become an issue?

EGL works with Tomcat just fine. Jon. If I'm not mistaken, it might also work with WebSphere Community Edition, which is also free.

Joe