Re: Switching to WDSC/RDI from SEU

Rod, we're in a similar situation. We have 2 programmers, an RPG'er
and a COBOL'er (myself) supporting a few hundred users. Our system is
comprised of a slightly modified major ERP package (JDE) with hundreds
of "bolt ons". Needless to say, we do a lot of green screen and batch
system maintenance.

I think WDSC is probably a great tool if your planning to "webify" your
business or some such thing, but for those of us in the trenches trying
to support our business with limited time, money and manpower, there
just doesn't seem to be any tangible benefit in moving to a slower and
more failure-prone editing environment. Also, I think us COBOL'ers got
the short end of the stick in terms of WDSC enhancements ;-)

IMO, the only thing interesting with the RDI suite of products is the
new-fangled EGL language/methodology, but it seems to be very expensive
and may require a steep learning curve to be fully productive in an
existing business environment. Time that is currently better spent
elsewhere...

Just my 2 cents...

Terry

-----Original Message-----
From: wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rod Verity
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 11:19 AM
To: WDSCI-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [WDSCI-L] Switching to WDSC/RDI from SEU


I thought I would add my comments to the pile. I do not have
a wealth of
experience, but I have faced a lot of frustrations trying to
justify using
WDSC in my shop. First off, we are a OPM Cobol shop with VB .net
applications front-ending into some of the Cobol routines. So we are
definitely in the minority. This has resulted in very
deficient support
from IBM and really others because of our "different world".
Not only do we
use Cobol, we also use CICS which pretty much puts us in
world of our own.
I have struggled to use and justify WDSC for well over a year. Some
functions within WDSC do not work for Cobol. Debug was and
continues to be
a nightmare to set up using CICS. Sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't.
It took me probably close to 3 months of searching for help before I
finally got some advice that would actually work. IBM gave up
on me before
I actually got it working using a combination of suggestions from this
forum. Shortcut functions with SEU are not easily matched in
WDSC. And like
was mentioned earlier, SEU/COBOL/CICS people are putting it bluntly,
"old"(me included) so old tricks die hard. But attempting to
master WDSC
and trying to make it work, not to mention productive, in our
environment
has been an effort in futility. Unless RDI changes the
picture, which I
understand it won't, I would have an extremely hard time
justifying buying
a product when the free version couldn't even make us more productive.
Sorry to be negative...just the experience I had with the
intermittent use
of WDSC. I would welcome any suggestions/comments/advice.

Rod Verity

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