RE: EJB versus RPG/COBOL

Joe,

I work daily on applications that reside in 5 environments across
several platforms -- personal, development, test, user acceptance, and
production. Deployment and running of Java vs RPG to different
environments is a wash. Both languages are controlled by a combination
of environment variables and library lists. A bigger challenge is not
with the language or library lists it is with shared authentication
between platforms. As far as flexibility, RPG can use pointers and
pointers to pointers but doesn't support interfaces, proxied access,
parameterized types, reflection, or a mechanism to use parameterized
types. Java has no direct pointer access but does support interfaces,
reflection, proxies, and a mechanism to use parameterized types. For
most business code pointers to pointers and proxies are overkill.

>>> joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 3/10/2004 1:16:49 PM >>>

...With library lists, two jobs can execute the same workflow and get
different results.  In order to do this with inheritance, it either
requires two JVMs with different classpaths or a sophisticated Factory
mechanism.  In neither case is inheritance the issue...

Joe