RE: New names -- MIDRANGE-L

Don't forget one of the classic windows user questions:

        Who is this General Failure and why is he reading my hard drive?

<g>

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of D.BALE@handleman.com
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 12:01 PM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: New names

Great story, John!  I have seen this happen, too.

At the risk of beating this thread to death (too late?), I would like
to chime
in.

IMO, companies do NOT choose to buy AS/400-iSeries over other platforms
for
"great" programs, primarily because I think most good applications are
ported
to multiple platforms nowadays, but rather they choose AS/400-iSeries
because
it is a rock-solid platform with a damned good OS that hardly ever goes
down
and, oh yes, it is one of the platforms that happens to run the
software
package they're interested in.  (O.K., maybe not necessarily in that
order of
priority.)

Another dead horse beating here, but, companies with a strong need for
high
uptime and secure systems that choose platforms other than
AS/400-iSeries do
so out of ignorance or with very deep pockets.

So, Leif, what is a "great program"?  Does it matter how stable the OS
is for
an app to rated "great"?  If the app has all the bells and whistles,
and
presents windows of charts and tables, and sings multimedia and
streaming
video, and, by gosh, the users LOVE it, but the danged thing runs on an
OS
that requires frequent reboots and scandisks to fix lost clusters and
suffers
BSOD's at the most inopportune times, can you still rate the
application
"great".  Some people might, but I couldn't.  Not if my business
depended on
it.

That doesn't even touch the issue of the people who have to manage the
system
and fielding all of the support calls - "my PC re-booted", "I've got
this blue
screen that says 'fatal exception'...", "My windows are all locked up".

There's a lot more I could add, but it has already been touched upon in
this
thread.

Dan Bale
IT - AS/400
Handleman Company
248-362-4400  Ext. 4952

-------------------------- Original Message --------------------------
It is a sad state of affairs when greatness has come to mean just doing
what you are supposed to do. If it just runs, it's great. Of course, in
ordinary
human experience we are all just waiting for Godot. Not too much
excitement is need nor wanted, c.f. that old Chinese curse: "may you
live
in
exciting times".

Leif
-------------

Leif  baby,

I'm with you.  Believe me.   I felt embarrassed writing my post.
Imagine,
Software that runs 24/7/365  by itself wins the gold cup !!!!
I once worked in a shop(Many years ago,  the old days)  where if a
program
you were responsible for blew up for the same reason twice,  you were
history.  Really,   it was a service bureau and things that blew up
were
not a just a fun conversation around the coffee pot.   It was serious.

Well,   MS (I personally believe)  conditioned the masses to a much
much
lower level of expectations.     I recently sat next to the help desk
and
the most often heard recourse for a PC failure was "Have you tried
rebooting?"       PC apps it seems have been given a WIDE latitude of
failure.

HOWEVER ,  if invoices ( a system run on the AS/400)  is late,   ALL
HELL
to pay.

If you think I'm being hard on the PC apps,   I'm sorry.   It's been my
personal experience.

For example,   We bought a company that had a Shop Floor system written
on
the PC in PowerBuilder.   The users loved it.   GUI, pretty, etc.    We
came in with our green screen app to replace it and they thought it was
"3rd world app from 1970"   (it was written two years ago in pure
RPGIV).

Here's the upshot.    Our system runs TRUE 24/7/365  Lights out
operation.
All transactions are mirrored to another machine(headquarters) If any
thing
happens with the AS/400 at the plant we can switch them in 10 minutes.
Never missing a beat,  Next roll number, next pallet number, etc.
"Like
you never left"
Three years and we haven't missed a transaction out of MILLIONS.


And when we were doing the first walk thru their site and seeing their
existing PowerBuilder system,   They proudly were showing it off,   and
I
casually asked,
"Why is the operator writing down the transaction on a legal note pad
after
entering it into your system?"

We were told by operator after operator on each machine that (off the
record)  that they could trust any thing in the system cause it locked
up a
couple of times a day and had to be rebooted.   Losing transactions
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But They loved the GUI.

So,   I agree with you Leif.    (If I see you in New Orleans I'll buy
you a
beer in CUDS).     I'm still waiting for GODOT also.

"The Optimist believes that this is the best of all possible worlds,
and
the Pessimist is afraid that he's right"

Respectfully
John Carr
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