Re: Wusu?

> From: Pike4@ix.netcom.com

>  At a potential new client, they mentioned that in addition to applications 
> on the AS/400, they have a little itty bitty app on the S/36, and that they 
> use WSU. I said, no problem, I've heard of that, but now, What the heck was/
> is WSU?

We also have a small app on M/36 on our AS/400 that uses WSU.

I never learned WSU.

We have some S/36 manuals that I hardly use any more, since our old timers 
have memorized S/36 navigation & we not encouraging new hires to learn M/36 
stuff when there is all that PC internet stuff out there ... point them to 
the future not the past.

Your "no problem" claim was not an ethical thing to say to your potential new 
client when you have merely "heard" of the product.

Is it really a tiny app?

Do they only use WSU on that tiny app or do they use it on a lot of other 
stuff ... your use of "and" could be misleading.

One interpretation could be that they use WSU very heavily, and in addition 
they have a tiny app.

Understand that WSU is supported by IBM on Machine/36 as a guest of OS/400 
but not on Environment/36 which is apparently the more common approach 
understood by more people, and not all hardware models of AS/400 support 
Machine/36.

Do they still have the source code for their WSU (we do not for ours which 
was one of the reasons we selected a migration path of S/36 to AS/436 to 
AS/400 model 170 ... you can move executable SSP code from S/36 to AS/36 
without having to recompile & then once it is in M/36, you can get to other 
AS/400 models).

I do not know about your client, but the WSU application we have turns 
security on its head ... the data is hidden from the client ... the password 
is designed by the source code (which we no longer have) & is passed from 
employee to employee who is given the task of doing that app ... what's the 
point?

Do they still have the IBM manuals on WSU ... good luck finding any if they 
don't.

Can you find someone who understands what they were doing - both 
"programming" logic & application logic.  

Our tiny app creates work files that create work files that create work files 
that ... about 20 levels deep & I asked my predecessor about the rhyme & 
reason of this & was told that the company used to have a disk space crunch & 
that was the only way the application would work on S/34 ... before alternate 
indexes came along.

But this is all internal file layouts in whatever program source code, not 
the external layouts that OS/400 users take for granted today.

Where OS/400 programmers often connect RPG & other HLL using CL programs, 
S/36 software is interconnected using OCL, but CL & OCL are similar in name 
only.

> From: jpcarr@tredegar.com (John P Carr)
>  
>  Worst  S#$%@   Utility
>  
>  It was for people who could write multiple-user   RPG apps.  

Well ours is single-user ... it dates back to the time that there was only 
one person doing any given type of work in any given department, so when any 
department hired a second person to handle growth, as soon as 2nd person 
tried to access same file, the application locked up without a clue as to 
why.  So I basically wrapped another little app around the first ... first 
step of every OCL execution asks IF any of those other OCL's are active & if 
so, message sent user listing what other job is running on  the 36 
conflicting for access to what file(s), then pause ... if user continues, it 
first loops to check if the other job has ended yet.

Al Macintyre  ©¿©
http://www.cen-elec.com MIS Manager Programmer & Computer Janitor
http://www.whma.org = our nitch industry has a large committee searching for 
ErPdMes products right for WHM without work-arounds, which for many members 
resemble a snipe hunt - if you are in this software business & want to fix 
your product so it will not be mistaken for what your competition has been 
doing, then you might want to join our great game.

Y2K is not the end of my universe, but a re-boot of that old Chinese curse.
The road to success is always under construction.
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong.
When you want it cheap - you get what you paid for.
When in doubt, read the manual, assuming you can find the right one.
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