|
Blair, I'm not going to dispute much of what you say. I'll just give my viewpoint, because that's probably the biggest difference between us. First, my background taints my view. I've been a midrange business application developer for over 20 years, and the problem space I've in is primarily the sort of database intensive applications used that are used to run real, live businesses. My particular focus was always ERP systems, one of the traditional domains of the iSeries and its predecessors, all the way back to the venerable S/3. So when I talk about business applications, and particularly legacy business applications, that's the space I'm talking about. Java does NOT play well in that space yet. And when traditional iSeries shops talk about business applications, these are the applications they're talking about. So, no, Java does not do as well in what I consider to be business applications. I don't know of a single shop that needs "full-color JPEG visualizations of trends in the MRP data". Honest I don't. And I honestly don't worry much about SPECjbb2000. I worry about MRP. And not only that, I worry about MRP as programmed by people who understand it from a business standpoint. You may be right that you could apply some wonderful parallel processing techniques to MRP to speed it up. But that's supposition, and takes for granted the rather sophisticated programming expertise required to develop truly parallel systems - expertise not generally available in ANY market, much less the iSeries market. Until you can deliver a programming environment where a workaday programmer can do the same job more efficiently in Java, it's all academic and pretty useless to somebody running their shop on a model 270. And that's the real world, or at least my real world. So I think we can agree that while SPECjbb2000 numbers are impressive, they don't make much difference to the majority of iSeries customers. Maybe I'm wrong - if so, I'm sure you'll tell me so <smile>. So here's my take on it: While Java makes us think in parallel ways, what difference does that make to someone posting their general ledger? What difference does it make to someone allocating shop floor inventory? These "meat and potato" applications are the ones that have pretty much built the midrange market, and are the ones that seem to get shunted aside by the newer technologies. In the mad rush to web-enabled graphical data mining applications for multinational corporations, the 100-man manufacturing shop is getting short shrift, because frankly none of these tools do him a bit of good. Most of them don't work and play with his legacy systems and databases - systems that have been serving him and his company for five, ten, fifteen or more years. Technology is great, new applications are cool, but if you leave the old customers behind, you're forgetting the people who paid for all this new stuff in the first place. If it wasn't for the S/3, S/34, S/36 and S/38 users, you wouldn't have an iSeries to play with. And what Java can do in a massively parallel 32-way 890 doesn't mean diddly to a guy who's trying to keep 100 people employed. I'm trying to get Java into THOSE shops. So that they are positioned to take advantage of the next wave of applications. So that they can web-enable their systems without having to redesign their database or hire an entirely new development staff. If the meat and potatoes shops embrace Java, you'll see it grow a lot faster than if only the biggest corporations do. I guess I just am focused on the little guys and what we can do for them, since they've basically paid my salary for a long time. And what we can do for them is to make a real, usable architecture that allows them to use Java as a front end to their legacy applications. Once they get that in-house, they can use that experience as a bridge to the next generation of applications that may be entirely written in Java and SQL. But that requires people who recognize the strengths and weaknesses of ALL the various tools, and aren't afraid to acknowledge that RPG still does some things better, and in fact the things RPG does do better may be more important to a lot of shops than the latest data-mining algorithm. Joe P.S. As to me having to prove my assertion that RPG is faster than Java: I sort of understand your point, but to me it's like owning the heavyweight title. My past benchmarks proved RPG faster than Java. Until Java takes the crown with a win, RPG retains the title.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
This mailing list archive is Copyright 1997-2024 by midrange.com and David Gibbs as a compilation work. Use of the archive is restricted to research of a business or technical nature. Any other uses are prohibited. Full details are available on our policy page. If you have questions about this, please contact [javascript protected email address].
Operating expenses for this site are earned using the Amazon Associate program and Google Adsense.