RE: Re: Recommendationsondevelopmentlanguage/environmentfor webpresentation layer

> From: Dave Odom
> 
> 1) I haven't seen a query tool yet that allows
> you to create screens and logic like you find in an application
> development environment but maybe you know of one/some.  If so, let me
> know.

Nope.  As you've found, query tools do one thing well: querying data.
However, they're just not set up for any level of sophistication when it
comes to applying business rules to that data.


> 2) My need is to be able to create a controlled access environment, in
> the beginning, to my data warehouse/data mart and operational data
store
> via screens that allow the user to put in certain data items they'd
like
> to query on and, in my application, I do the call to stored procedures
> on the iSeries or other methodologies of static SQL access to DB2/400.

Well, this is still not going to require a whole lot of infrastructure
and can be done with just about any architecture you choose.  From what
I can see, you're simply asking for more complex querying, and
encapsulating that in stored procedures.  If that's the case, any
technique that allows you to display relation data will work fine.  A
.NET/ODBC environment is probably as good as JSP Model II in this
environment, since you're really not doing that much logic.  In fact,
the only architecture with a clear advantage in this case would be
something like RPG-CGI or Nathan Andelin's Relational Web, because of
the low overhead and single language approach.


> From my limited view of
> web development, it appears like the following is the case for web
> development environments/languages:
> 
> - HTML, etc.,  the very beginning of working with a web environment -
> early man web development
> - Add  JavaScript - allows some more logic development along with HTML
> - Use .ASP, etc., for a little more sophistication but still seems to
> operate like one big scripting language using HTML, CSS, etc., to
create
> its screens
> - Use Java and you get a full blown development environment like what
> you find using RPG, COBOL, PL/I, C,  etc.   It seems like Microsoft
> tries to compete here with .NET but it seems that Java is the most
> robust and has the longest track record.

Well, to be honest neither of your first two provide anything in the way
of dynamic data, so are useless for anything other than serving up
static web pages.  Not much there.  It isn't until you use ASP or JSP
that you get dynamic data.

"Java" is a very broad term.  There are multiple Java-based options,
ranging from simple servlets to JSP Model I to full-blown EJB
strategies, with frameworks like Hibernate for persistence and JSF for
the user interface.  I find JSP Model II to be the best.


> So, it seems that Java is the way for me to go, perhaps using the
> WebSphere tools that came with the iSeries Enterprise Edition.
> Thoughts?

I concur.