Re: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

Trevor Perry Wrote:
CTRL+S in WDSc is publishing your changes from the
development server to the deployment or production server.

Man, I didn't mean 
to spark a debate between WDSC and PDF.  I understand the Eclipse community is 
promoting the term Rich-Client Platform (or RCP) for Eclipse based plug-ins and 
applications like WDSC.

 

Some years ago I 
dove head first into desktop and client-server development using Visual Studio, 
Visual Foxpro, and Delphi.  VB and Visual Foxpro compilers created small .exe 
files, but required runtime .dlls of 1.5 - 2.5 meg.  Delphi created self 
contained .exe files that ranged in size from a about 3kb and up.  My biggest  
Delphi
application was about 4MB.

 

In client-server 
settings we normally used ODBC to access SQL databases, which might be deployed 
on remote servers.  Performance of ODBC was constrained by network bandwidth.  
We adopted the term Fat-Client, which was unflattering, but appropriately fit 
the architecture.  Most of the application logic was deployed to the desktop, 
which was a pain to manage, maintain, secure, and synchronize with server based 
file systems.

 

If I understand 
correctly, the minimum RCP footprint is about 7MB, and deploying an application 
on top of that will perhaps double the footprint, and being written in Java, my 
guess is that the memory requirements would be about ten (10) times greater 
than 
the desktop applications that I used to develop.  If they were fat, wouldn't 
that 
make RCP obese?  I don't know the footprint of WDSC, but it seems to be 
huge.

 

Rich sounds more 
appealing, of course.  But where did the term Rich-Client come from?  And why 
was it adopted by the Eclipse community?  The first time I heard it was in 
connection with AJAX technology, then later with Adobe Flex, which are both 
browser-based technologies.  Flex applications run in a small browser plug-in, 
while AJAX just runs in the browser.  Did the Eclipse community hijack the 
term?

 

One day I was 
composing an email, using Yahoo's browser based interface, when I noticed that 
about half of my words had squiggly red lines underneath.  What's all the red, 
I 
wondered?  I tried clicking on one of the words and was immediately rewarded 
with a small popup list containing similar words, but having correct spelling.  
It turned out that some asynchronous process in Firefox was evidently running a 
spell 
checker while I typed.

 

Now I'm really 
wondering just how far AJAX will go?  Will it be possible to deploy 
applications 
to servers that provide desktop-like features (like WDSC), but great 
performance  (like 5250), without the problems of managing, maintaining, 
securing, and synchronizing obese desktop environments?




Nathan.


----- Original Message ----
From: Trevor Perry <tperry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 9:52:18 AM
Subject: Re: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

Nathan,

Thanks for the support. I appreciate the feedback.

Maybe I need to build a website: www.as400syndromeandproudofit.com ? I agree 
with you that the key to the future is leveraging the past. However, we need 
to have a clear vision of what was valuable from the past and use it as a 
stepping stone to the future.

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

And, you did not define what you meant by 'better' when you said "native 
record 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.

Trevor







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