RE: The case for Java on (or out) of the iSeries

From: Luis Colorado

Joe,

I am quite intrigued about EGL. I have read some stuff about it (including
some of your postings), and it looks very interesting. Since you are an
expert in EGL, I hope you can help me to understand better the
relationship between Rational and EGL.

In my understanding Rational Rose started as a very cool CASE tool in the
80's, and then they grew and bought other products (like Clear CASE), and
then they got bought out by IBM. At that point I got lost... I have been
looking at IBM's Rational pages, and it's hard to me to make sense out of
all the products they offer. Is EGL part of the original Rational tools,
or it's just another tool that IBM added to the Rational portfolio?

Okay, there are three different things in play here: Eclipse, Rational, and
Cross System Product (CSP, aka EGL). I'm not sure exactly when Rational got
on the Eclipse bandwagon, but the current suite of Rational tools (Rational
Application Developer, rational System Architect and so on) are all based on
Eclipse and are very, very good IDEs. WDSC is built on top of RAD, and
that's why it has so many great features in addition to its outstanding
System i HLL editors.

CSP is a 20-something year old product line designed to allow OS independent
development. Designed originally for the mainframe, it now generates COBOL
and Java. CSP became VisualAge Generator and then EGL. If IBM has its way,
EGL will be a standardized language sometime in the next few years. The
tooling for EGL is called Rational Business Developer. It is currently a
plug-in to RAD, but will be a standalone product - it will still be
Eclipse-based, but you will be able to install it either by itself or in
conjunction with your other Rational products.

So, basically Eclipse is the foundation of everything. RAD is the base of
what we're using right now, and WDSC is RAD plus System i-specific tooling.
Currently, EGL is an extra-priced add-on to WDSC or RAD, but in the next
release it will be a standalone product.

You also brought up the pricing problem... we have V5R4... I heard that
this version of WDSC includes some Rational tools, but, considering that
Rational has such a hodgepodge of products, I am not sure what that means.
I'm not sure if we have to buy something to use EGL or not, and how much
that would be. Could you please shed some light about their pricing, and
your expectations for V6Rx?

As I said, WDSC is built on RAD. Well, technically it was built on Rational
Web Developer, not Rational Application Developer, but from what I
understand that distinction is going away in the next release of Rational.
There will also be no more WDSC Advanced Edition. There will only be one
WDSC, and it may get a new name as well.

RBD is a separate product, as I said. The big question is how is RBD going
to get into the hands of System i developers. I don't know much, and what I
know I can't say <grin>. However, I'm about to have a conference call with
the EGL folks where hopefully I'll learn more, and also learn what I can
tell the community. I've made it clear that IBM needs to get EGL into the
hands of System i developers without breaking the budget, and I think
they're really interested in doing so. How they plan to do so is up in the
air, but I know that $1500 a seat ain't gonna do it.

I hope to have more information soon.

Joe