Re: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch -- MIDRANGE-L

Trevor,

Usually I'm in the same camp (philosophically, if not technically) asyou. But I had a couple of issues with your recent reply. Inserts below.


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Trevor Perry wrote:

For example, you compare SAVE in SEU with CTRL+S in WDSc. However, thesethings are two completely separate tasks. SAVE in SEU will save you currentmember for you to your development system. In WDSc, this function is donefor you. Your PC is the development system, and it keeps all of the changesyou make as you develop in the Integrated Development Environment. CTRL+S inWDSc is publishing your changes from the development server to thedeployment or production server. Not apples to apples. You are complainingabout the present based on something different from the past.

While you're obviously correct technically, Trevor, it isapples-to-apples if one's perception is ultimately to save the sourcecode. Where it resides during keying is, of course, relevanttechnically, but frankly is not relevant perceptually (sic?). If I gavemy users answers like that, they'd whop me upside the head with abaseball or cricket bat: "I want to do a function - period."

And, you did not define what you meant by 'better' when you said "nativerecord level access is better than SQL for retrieving records by key,updating them, and writing them". While the AS/400 faithful may think it is'better' in some green outdated sense, the System i futurists do not agree.

My perception of what Nathan meant was that native access is faster whentrying to retrieve one record, usually randomly. Indeed, the mantra Ihave heard at numerous sessions on SQL at COMMON is that SQL is greatfor group-at-a-time processing, but barfs (compared to native) on singlerecord access.And the term "green outdated sense" makes no sense to me in this or anycontext. Green screen -vs- GUI (presentation) was not the issue; recordaccess was. And just who are these "System i futurists" (besides youand Dr. Frank) and just why do they not agree? Because the statement"single record access is faster using native access methods rather thanSQL" is false or because there's something coming down the pike thatwill eventually make the statement false?

Trevor
----- Original Message -----From: "Nathan Andelin" <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 5:51 PM
Subject: Re: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch
Trevor Perry:
I wrote about AS/400 Syndrome ...
"Maybe, this ability to see no further than your own technology
is a disease? Letʼs call it AS/400 syndrome, and work on a cure!"

"Are you stuck in the past? Do you have AS400 Syndrome?"
In the past, I entered "save" in the command line of SEU and my programwas saved to disk in the blink of an eye.
In the present, I press CTR+S in Websphere Developer Studio Client and amsomewhat entertained by three (3) iterations of the progress bar (growingand shrinking, growing and shrinking, growing and shrinking) while I waitfor the file to be saved.
You have a great site, Trevor. And I appreciate the recognition theSystem i platform is gaining from it. But in some ways, the past isbetter than the present.
The AS/400 faithful are a discriminating group. They've learned forexample that native record level access is better than SQL for retrievingrecords by key, updating them, and writing them.
The key is leveraging the the past to ensure the future, not discardingthe past for things that grab immediate attention, but have less intrinsicvalue.
Nathan.