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... but I have heard of way to many System i systems or applications being
replaced because they are not modern/gui/whatever. Given that, doesn't something have to change? And how should it be accomplished? That is EXACTLY what I am talking about in my rant to George. IBM is trying to introduce us to COMPLETELY new languages (Java/EGL) and servers (WAS). Changing to those vs. modifying RPG to meet the same need is where I think they have gone wrong. The change needs to happen to the RPG language/platform and not through new introduction. Sure they are making consistent changes to RPG (small changes here and there), but they have ignored the big elephant in the room of us needing RPG native ways to do web programming and RPG native thick client interfaces. Thanks Mike, Aaron Bartell -----Original Message----- From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Crump, Mike Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 11:13 AM To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion Subject: RE: Platform Independence (was George is Farr from where we want tobe) Aaron, I would definitely say that with any of the modern language environments that the risk of 'performance' problems is much higher than it is with our working languages. "your mileage may vary" "buyer beware" "it depends" are definite terms to be used when going down this road. Don't forget that within the RPG world we have decades of experience and the learning was typically done at a nice pace (read linear). Today the people using JAVA (even if they are knowledgeable) probably won't get to the same level of comfort for quite a while. And the expectations are that they pick this up in a exponential fashion. I know this goes to your point but the best JAVA programmers are the guys who have been doing C or C++ programming for decades. Same with .NET weenies. The complexity transition to any new technology is not to be trivialized. The ripple effect is a nice way to put it. Seems to be it some where between a ripple and a rogue wave. The administration of this is even more complex. And problem determination? Generally, I agree with most points but I'm not necessarily willing to damn the new technologies. There is a need and a fit out there. Change for the sake of change is never good but I have heard of way to many System i systems or applications being replaced because they are not modern/gui/whatever. Given that, doesn't something have to change? And how should it be accomplished? Michael Crump Manager, Computing Services Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc. 1509 S. Macedonia Ave. Muncie, IN 47302 765.741.7696 765.741.7012 f Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last and don't ever volunteer to do anything. This email and its attachments may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Saint-Gobain. If it did, it would be folded, mutilated, watered down, politically corrected, and would show up a week later if at all. If you are not the intended recipient of this email and its attachments, you must take no action based upon them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. -----Original Message----- From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of albartell Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:56 AM To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion' Subject: RE: Platform Independence (was George is Farr from where we want tobe)
in essence implemented on a system that is already running a decent
workload, does not have enough memory, is utilizing an older processor, is not written very well, etc. Interestingly enough, these are all things that we "can get away with" when coding RPG. Yes an RPG program can still kill a system, but I think that happens much less often than in the Java environment. I didn't put the word "scholarly" in there simply because I was lacking word choice. You have to know A LOT about the ins and outs of Java components to 'get it right' when creating a large application with the potential for a lot of concurrent users. In RPG you are there much quicker. Good to hear about your other failures to successes with Java. I don't hear much of the successes believe it or not. But like you commented in #1, a lot of these things could/should simply be implemented in RPG as that is the language most shops support. Introducing a new language into the mix in any shop has MANY ripple effects (think QA, Support, Training, Debugging, Split knowledge on multiple platforms, etc) Thanks for your comments Mike, Aaron Bartell -----Original Message----- From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Crump, Mike Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 8:33 AM To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion Subject: RE: Platform Independence (was George is Farr from where we want tobe) Platform independence? Not very. We use JAVA more so to allow for using the ubiquitous browser and for independence from MS. Although, I would also have to respectfully disagree with some of Aaron's points. While I would not argue that plenty of people have horror stories regarding native Java performance I think that you will find a lot of them are of there own making - in essence implemented on a system that is already running a decent workload, does not have enough memory, is utilizing an older processor, is not written very well, etc. 1.) We have a native JAVA program that processes our finite scheduling system. This is program that does a lot of IO and I argued up front that it should have never been written in Java because it was a classic fit for RPG. I lost but I will have to say that application runs blazingly fast and processes many functions and millions of records. I doubt that we would see any improvement if it was converted to RPG. In addition, by most testing it is as fast as running it on an independent WINTEL platform. I have compared it run wise on our i5 to an IXS system (to eliminate remote database issues) and there is no comparison. Right now, I am not in the position to test on a faster Bladecenter type of unit but perhaps in the future. The database is remote to the native application as well. 2.) We originally implemented WAS (v3) on a 720 years ago. 80% of the application runs perfectly fine but certain components were a dog. Processor was not being taxed, we were not short of memory, we just did not have the processor crank and L2 cache that the application needed. Shortly thereafter we upgraded to an 825 and 100% of the application ran fine. A classic example of implementing Java in a not so perfect platform. I would argue that as we have climbed the server ladder 7xx, 8xx, 5xx the potential for this problem has decreased. 3.) We run WAS and WPS on our 570's and generally speaking these guys perform very well. Our major complaint on WPS comes from portlets that we rely on our parent company for and their responsiveness is not very good. 4.) The native JVM can be a resource hog. That is why the J9 was invented. Certain machines and customers should not be running the native JVM. They do not have the horse for it. Is it a problem with the native JVM? Perhaps. I would just argue that it is as much environmental as it is platform. I cannot argue with the complexity. However, I think that this is not a JAVA problem only. Every existing 'modern' application is much more complex than the traditional RPG model. Whether it is Java, .NET, Domino, etc. I think that they are much more complicated either in architecture or in resulting code length. Michael Crump Manager, Computing Services Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc. 1509 S. Macedonia Ave. Muncie, IN 47302 765.741.7696 765.741.7012 f Cluelessness There are no stupid questions, but there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots. This email and its attachments may be confidential and are intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Saint-Gobain. If it did, it would be folded, mutilated, watered down, politically corrected, and would show up a week later if at all. If you are not the intended recipient of this email and its attachments, you must take no action based upon them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. -----Original Message----- From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Michael Ryan Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 8:10 AM To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion Subject: Platform Independence (was George is Farr from where we want to be) How important is platform independence to the community? It has little importance to me. I believe RPG is the best language on iSeries, and I don't need to write the same code to run on multiple platforms. I *do* write code on multiple platforms (VB and C on Wintel), but I don't expect or want to run the *same* code on other platforms. On 3/28/07, albartell <albartell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
While in that session I was very close to asking the group whether
they gave
a rip about platform independence.
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