RE: Web-Facing Tool - more thoughts

Message text written by INTERNET:java400-l@midrange.com
>
>I would not recommend the Web Facing tool anyway. You have to maintain
>RPG and Java for any changes to the application. It's no way to Java.

Hi Dieter!  I have been to a site who are using WebFacing.  When they
change
their RPG code, the WebFaced version does not change at all.  Only if the
DDS changes do you need to re-convert the DDS and re-create the Java
objects.

You have a good point when you say it's no way to Java, but that is one of
the selling points: One can deploy Java applications without any Java
programmers.  Whether this is a good long-term strategy is another
question.

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WebFacing offers options for both:
- single point of maintenance for Java web and RPG application
   with SOME customization of the web application
- generation of a Java web application that is maintained
  separately from the RPG version for EXTENSIVE customization requirements

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>And what about Websphere on AS/400??? The full featured enterprise
>edition is neither available for as400 nor announced; when big blue
>takes it away from as400 your applications are taken away.

I am researching running my jsp's with Tomcat, but your remarks are
correct.

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Tomcat SHOULD be an excellent solution on iSeries for those that want it.
I've used it on NT.  I know others are starting to use it on iSeries.

iSeries will always have WebSphere.
iSeries probably NEVER will have the Enterprise edition which
primarily supports IBM proprietary extensions to the full J2EE model
available in the Advanced edition ( Enterprise has CICS, MQ Connectors
and Component Broker which is based on CORBA standards among
other features).

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>And what about rewriting all tools (VAJ, Websphere development studio
>etc.) based on eclipse - that will change all of this tools and the
>applications as well. then you throw away all VAJ stuff and maybe your
>web-faced apps too. Dieter

That is another unknown, but the history of IBM is that one can keep the
older codebase running even on the latest machine.  It's not impossible
that
they will change this policy, but it doesn't seem likely.

How would you bring up a real Java application that works with a package
created by a CASE tool?  (I'm desperately struggling to stay on topic!)
  --buck

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Yes the IBM WDS tools will support existing Java standards the
same as most other Java web runtimes do.    You can build with
JSP 1.0 or 1.1 in the new tool set for instance.  Can you build
with JSP 0.91 level?   I doubt it.   Can you build with JDK 1.2?
No.  Can you bring code from  a JDK 1.2 app into the new tools?
Yes with warnings on deprecation and potential changes required.

Any Java application environment to date has not offered the same
backward compatibility that we are used to in COBOL and RPG (
more than 20 years of backward compatibility usually ... ).

You CAN expect tools to help migrate your code from one version
to another in an automated manner to a fair degree..   VisualAge for Java
has done that nicely with back level Java apps already....

You should also expect that the payoff in these tools IS the combination
of generated code, beans, applications  with a "full" level of
customization or extension increasing programmer productivity ....


Jim Mason

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