JAVA400-L in 2001 -- JAVA400-L

Well, the second quarter of 2001 is upon us.  The Y2K1 problem has come and
gone (and yes, there was really a Y2K1 problem), and we're still here.  It's
time to move on.  And along those lines, I think it's time to get some
discussions rolling here.

I mentioned a little while back that I wanted JAVA400-L to be focused less
on beginning Java and more on the actual application of Java in conjunction
with the AS/400.  In that spirit, I'd like to propose some areas of
discussion.  It seems to me that there are several areas that immediately
jump out.  Many of them are the ones I'm most familiar with.  At the same
time ongoing developments in the architecture of the AS/400 (or iSeries)
would dictate that we pursue additional conversations (even <shudder> SQL).

I'm about to head out of town for a week, so I thought I'd bring up the
topics, and see if you, the loyal mailing list particpants, can't come to a
little bit of consensus as to what you might like to address.  When I return
(as an old married man), my first order of business is going to be to get
Java400.net up and running on the model 270.  I plan to have demos of
various architectures.  I'd even like to get some forums up and running
where perhaps we can have some more focused discussions, but that will
depend on my time (and the time of anyone else who might want to help, hint
hint).

So, that being the case, I'd like to propose a few discussions topics:

GENERAL PERFORMANCE

How do we measure performance in the following areas?

1. RPG vs. Java
2. WebSphere 2.0 vs. WebSphere 3.5 vs. Tomcat
3. Servlets and JSP vs. RPG-CGI
4. Native DB2/400 vs. SQL
5. Others?

(please note that any COBOL people are welcome to participate as well � I'm
not discriminating, I just don't have a COBOL compiler)


DISTRIBUTED PROGRAMMING

What architectures do you see as important for your business today
(tactically)?  How about longer term (strategically)?  What are the benefits
and drawbacks with the following architecures?

1. Screen scraping
2. Server/client (replacing I/O with servlets and JSP)
3. RPG-CGI (replacing I/O with direct HTML output)
4. Message-based client/server
5. "Distributed SQL" (using ODBC and stored procedures)
6. Remote database access (straight SQL access to data)
7. Pure Java using EJB
8. Others?


JAVA DESIGN

Which areas would people like to work on solutions?

1. OO design for markup languages
2. Application frameworks (moving from screen to screen in a web
application)
3. Integrating backend data with advanced web techniques (Shockwave,
Dreamweaver, DHTML)
4. Integrating legacy applications with web browsers
5. "Wrappering" legacy applications inside XML documents
6. As always, others?


JAVA TOOLS

Would anyone like to share their experiences with, or ask questions about,
various java tools?

1. IDEs such as JBuilder or Code Warrior
2.Visual Age for Java
3. NetBeans
4. IBM's Java Toolbox
5. Any servlet testing environments
6. The ubiquitous "others"?


These are just some of the areas I see that we could begin to explore.
There are plenty of others that come into play, both directly and
tangentially, such as LPAR and Linux and Webfacing.  Please, feel free to
add more topics that you think make sense, and let's start figuring out how
to make 2001 an exciting year for the AS/400 and for Java, and most of all,
for us.

Joe Pluta
Moderator

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