Re: what was the single mgmt decision made in mid-1990s. period

On 17-Feb-09, at 7:24 PM, midrange-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Although I don't disagree with the idea that people could have taken more
advantage of what is there now, letting IBM off hook for not providing a GUI
because the community didn't massively adopt RPG IV or whatever doesn't
wash

I was responding in the context of "why didn't IBM do x" - and in that context - yes it does wash in my opinion.

IBM responded to a barrage of RPG community requests and provided a new version of RPG. It still isn't used as much as it should be. If you were IBM and the same community came back and said they wanted a native GUI would _you_ risk the investment? I don't think I would.

Perhaps more importantly - if people got the native GUI they wouldn't like it - and that would result in them not using it. Why wouldn't they like it? Because it wouldn't (and shouldn't) work like a 5250.

I'll probably get dumped all over for this but - It seems to me that most of the people who would use a native GUI are already writing web apps using alternative approaches from Nathan and Brad with their own tool kits to those who use CGIDEV2 and Renaissance, to those who are using Java or PHP to front-end, to those who use Look or ... The boat has sailed - there are many excellent solutions out there - it is 5+ years too late for IBM to do it.


Jon Paris

www.Partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com