RE: framework question

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Bartell, Aaron L. (TC)
> 
> I can see your point here definitely.  So what would be your most
> important
> reason for going to RPG for business logic vs. Java?  Is it the native
> file
> access (which is obviously better in RPG)?  Could you do all your Java
> Physical File access with EJB's which from what I have recently heard
> provides fairly seamless integration into your iSeries files.  I don't
> know
> that much about EJB's and I know you are not a big fan of that
framework,
> but what are you thoughts on that?

I would never use EJBs, except for... well for anything, really.  There
isn't a single iSeries industry expert that I know of who still promotes
EJB.  Java purists do, of course, because it's "platform independent",
as does IBM, because it requires LOTS of horsepower.

Start with this: in order to use EJB you must journal all your files.
Well actually there are two flavors of EJB, CMP and BMP, and only CMP
requires journaling.  But BMP is basically "write your own" persistence,
which defeats the purported purpose of EJBs in the first place.  If
you're going to use BMP, you may as well just use something leaner than
EJB like JDO or a persistence layer like Hibernate.

Or write your own using a Factory object and a persistence layer that
proxies to an RPG server program.


> I am presented with this exact issue: Where does your Java stop and
your
> RPG
> start, and vice versa.  To date our shop hasn't made big leaps into
Java
> (regardless of where it should be used) because we haven't had the
> knowledge
> base to support it.

It's simple for me.  For inquiries on data that isn't particularly
sensitive, JDBC and a framework like Struts is great.  This allows you
to build lots of great enterprise information systems for management
without much overhead.

For anything else, I stick with servers written in RPG accessed by a
controller, also written in RPG.  These send message to a servlet, whose
sole responsibility is creating beans from messages, invoking JSPs, and
then converting responses from JSP forms back to messages.

Joe