Re: Ruby On Rails on the iSeries

Rails offers a lot  of time savers.  Scripts for generating default directory 
structures for  applications.  Scripts for generating basic CRUD applications.  
Scripts for  generating Model/View/Controller source files.  Built-in 
components that  generate HTML, which can be used in addition to a WYSIWYG 
editor, or as an  alternative.  Built-in  components which are just extensions 
of base classes, reducing the programmer  code to a minimum.  A framework that 
automatically performs mapping between the  database and the screen, and visa 
versa, based on naming conventions is  a powerful concept.
  
 Interpretive  runtime environments are seductively appealing in the first 
place.  There's no  compile, build, or deployment steps.  You can immediately 
see the results of  your work on the screen, or error messages generated by the 
runtime  environment.  It probably can't be beat for prototyping and rapid 
application  development, so long as the applications are essentially 
adaptations  of supported models.
  
 Tools like WDSC  and EGL are HEAVY, in comparison.  Downloading updates to 
WDSC are an overnight  proposition.  You hope the network doesn't go down in 
the mean time.  The  development and deployment environments are so massive 
that you hope an update  won't destabilize your machine.

If Rails is simple, and it works, then it's probably destined to attract the 
type of people, and the type of loyalty, that's typical in the iSeries 
community.

  

 Nathan  Andelin


----- Original Message ----
From: AJ Thomas <ajthomas.iseries@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 2:21:47 AM
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Ruby On Rails on the iSeries

What I like about Rails, and don't like about IBM's solutions, is that
it does the hard work for me and leaves me to solve my problem. More
importantly it gets you to your solutions quickly, install/run wow
I've just created a blog. On the iSeries I think the reason lots of
people use RPG-CGI is because you only have to learn QtmhWrStout and
one or two Apache directives and wham you're a web developer straight
from your good old RPG. The other beauty about RoR is that I can
download it on to any Mac/PC/Linux box and play with it for free. If I
want to learn one of IBM's solutions I have to get my head around
WDSC, WAS and IBM's licencing rules just for having a look. I believe
that if IBM were serious about moving iSeries developers forward they
should find a "press this button-change code here" solution. Get a
green screen menu option that sets up the "dirty stuff" and lets you
write an RPG program. Why should an RPG programmer have to learn Java
Servlets first, when most times they will end up copying an existing
solution anyway? I know IBM want to sell stuff, but I think they may
sell more if they make the first step easy, we can go back to the
complicated things when we feel comfortable.

I love the RoR "opinionated software" approach too; do it this way
because it's easy and works. If you want to do something else then by
all means go and study and then do it you way, but if you want to be
productive now do it this way and get on with it. Perhaps IBM should
occasionally be a bit dictatorial :-)