RE: Strategic Java Usage

["Nathan M. Andelin" <nandel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> In the referenced example, the Java component to
> display a list of employees and departments is
> exactly the same.

> This means that any requirement to select, display,
> edit, delete database records can be generically
> handled via a single component thus saving huge
> amount of redundant programming.

> RPG simply cannot accomplish this.

Actually, it can be done in RPG.  For reference see:

http://www.wrkdbf.com/

It would be possible to create an ILE *SRVPGM, exporting a utilitarian
interface for database maintenance, and bind Web applications to it.

We'd probably want Web applications to support custom HTML interfaces,
rather than having a generic (utilitarian) user interface for every
application.

But if we were to go that route, wouldn't we need to consider the cost of
either inheriting (Java) or binding with (ILE) a comparatively large
"utility" for every maintenance program or Servlet we deploy?  Wouldn't
there be performance implications according to the number of programs or
Servlets deployed?

> For reasons not 100% clear to me.. the AS/400 Java
> performance seems to stink.  I've had and helped 3
> clients move their apps to Windows and see the
> performance improve dramatically.

It could be the speed of the CPU.  IBM synchronizes CPU speed with CPW
targets.  A box running a 4 year old 200 MHz Northstar chip, might actually
be 4 times slower than a box running a 7 year old 100 MHz Apache chip,
according to CPU bound benchmarks.  Hint: get a fast CPU.

Wintel boxes have cheap, fast CPU's, but they don't manage complex workloads
effectively.  Try running a large Oracle database and Websphere on a single
Wintel server, generating reports at the same time as serving Web pages, and
you'll appreciate the performance capabilities of OS/400.

Nathan.