Re: IBM getting rid of RPG

One of the problems where this penalty comes into play involves a large number 
of
programs built to provide us with an Executive Information System.  It would 
take
a significant amount of time to rewrite those programs just to get back to where
we were when we started from a presentation point of view, time that management
may not feel too pleased about providing us with.  This system is written
entirely in RPG and displays various business trends in offsetting colored bar
graphs.  Its used to encourage peer-to-peer management (competition) among
multiple plants instead of making the plant managers respond to seemingly
arbitary directives handed down from above (it gets rid of the  'you don't live
in the real world' arguments because they're competing against people who live 
in
the same world that they do).  There's also a drill-down function built into the
bars on all of the graphs so people can see where the numbers came from.
Re-writing code for file maintenance programs will be considerably easier.


Joe Pluta wrote:

> There are ways around the interactive tax.  In fact, I'll be doing a seminar
> on exactly that topic at COMMON.  The basic idea is to modify your programs
> to run in batch and talk to a data queue instead of a display file.  Once
> you do that, you can pretty quickly attach a user interface, either thick
> client or thin.  A thick client can be written in VB or Java, or you can use
> a servlet engine such as WebSphere or Tomcat to run your applications via a
> browser.  It's fast, powerful, flexible and relatively painless.
>
> This way, your primary business logic is still written in RPG, which I
> contend is the best language for defining business rules in the business,
> primarily because of its tight integration with the database.  And, once
> you've started separating your business logic from your presentation, you
> can start looking at moving towards a true client/server architecture, which
> is where I believe the iSeries will truly outpace any other platform.
>
> Joe
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
> > [mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of William A Pack
> > Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2001 11:09 AM
> > To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> > Subject: IBM getting rid of RPG
> >
> >
> >       I liked Mr. Rockwell's comments.  IBM is trying everything
> > to get people to
> > abandon current applications and migrate to something they want to sell,
> > like Java or Domino.  They are good alternatives for new apps,
> > but if I have
> > a business running for 5-10 years on good software, why should I
> > change just
> > because IBM wants me to?  IBM is going to piss off quite a few customers,
> > who will remember the favor that IBM did them by jacking up the cost of
> > interactive workload.  If they have to change applications, my
> > guess is they
> > will be implemented on a cluster of Wintel boxes, just to return the favor
> > to IBM.  I really want to now the technical reasons IBM has for costing on
> > interactive features.  They claim it is harder to do 5250 now that 3 years
> > ago.  Why?
> >       The System 3/x family was sold as a programmerless systems.
> >  The AS/400 was
> > sold as a system that will maintain investment in applications
> > and business
> > practices.  Now, the only thing that sets the 400 apart from the sea of
> > Intel based clones is the single manufacturer.   Looks like the future
> > belongs to Wintel and C#.
>
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