Re: Dis- merits of AS/400

:::True.  The last time I worked with an install that had a resident COBOL
:::programmer they kept looking over my shoulder and gasped in amazement that I
:::could do in 12 lines of code that took them 50.  I'm sure that the JAVA/C
:::programmers would feel the same.


I won't get into any language argument ... but I will say that Object-Oriented
program is the future; that is pretty much a given.




:::> Another disadvantage is the apparent high price of the system.
:::
:::Glad you said "apparent".  No need to beat the issue on cost of ownership,
:::but first impressions mean a lot.


I said "apparent" with specific intent. I realize the AS/400 can be less
expensive over the long haul. But when a CEO sees a price tag of $100,000 for
an AS/400 versus, say, $45,000 for a big server ... well ...

Face it; MOST companies do NOT seriously consider the long-term view for any
financial decision. Otherwise, we'd all have ergonomic chairs, fast PC's,
state-of-the-art software tools, etc etc. They -- driven by the lust of most
shareholders -- are more worried about THIS QUARTER.



:::> Another disadvantage is the lack of support for non-IBM DBMS's.
::DB2 is a bad thing?  From a designer/programmer point of view SQL is SQL and
::I could case less about the underlying RDMS.  (As long as SQL is SQL)



DB2 is great; I told my 17-year old son just the other day, "It's like the best
RDBMS going". But choice is good ... competition is good ... and it would be
nice to be able to choose Oracle or -- dare I say it? -- MS SQL Server.




:::> Another: proprietary hardware costs more.
:::
:::See your point about "apparent".


Agreed.





:::Point well thrashed on this list already.  The times they are a changing.
:::(with apologies <g>)


I know that more and more books are becoming available. But last year MS sold
over 600,000 copies of NT Server, versus about 350,000 copies of OS/400 OVER
TEN YEARS. I'm NOT dissing OS/400 ... just stating the fact that NT is
everywhere, and has such high visibility.



In a more perfect world, our servers would be AS/400's and we'd all be running
Macs or Amigas on our desktops.


Peace,

-- Don Schenck
www.SchenckTech.com

+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---