RE: IBM pushing Java

Hello Brad (again),

You wrote:
>Interesting story here.  Recently the corp I work for aquired a new company.
>They were running a unix system and in the middle of converting everything
>to java.  Now, they are losing the unix box and implementing an AS/400.
>They started talking about how they'd have to redo most of the system.  Me,
>being cynical, said "just port the java code... it's portable, right?"
>
>Ahhh... we forgot about database differences (field names, data types,
>etc)....  

I would expect a reasonable level of portability with the exception of the GUI 
(of course if they'd done the 
Java properly it should be a client-server implementation anyway).

JDBC should isolate you from most of the database differences.  Stored 
procedures should be able to handle the 
rest.  Of course they may still have to cope with data-types the AS/400 doesn't 
support but a good OO design 
should have hidden that stuff well away from the application

>When companies like JDEdwards, MAPICS, etc start selling fully functionals
>packages written entirely in java, and that is all they are offering, then
>we will know java is here to stay.  But, I can almost guarentee that will
>never happen.

Don't bet on this unless you can afford to loose.  I do not believe that Java 
will replace RPG or COBOL for 
the same reasons that 4GLs and CASE didn't replace COBOL and PL/1.  However, 
enough big vendors are creating 
ERP type packages in Java (Intentia and their MOVEX package for one, although I 
suspect they just wrote a 
converter and pumped the RPG code through it.  OO? Nope, but it's Java, man! It 
must be good) and once one 
vendor starts offering something others will follow suit and so the rolling 
stone gathers momentum and sheds 
whatever moss may have accumulated.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.

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