Re: V5 availability -- MIDRANGE-L

Rick,

I have no __official__ information.  I was at a presentation
yesterday where Joel Knudson from IBM Omaha said several times
that the announcement would probably be in April with delivery
in May.  He gave out some very interesting tidbits and seemed
to have an inside track on what is coming.

When he presented the IBM line about GUI, GUI, GUI, everything
will be GUI, I asked if IBM had any plans to provide a "scripting
language" for the e(logo)Server iSeries Model 38 + 400 GUI.  I understand 
how cool it is to right click on a little gizmo
after you have double clicked on some other little gizmo
after opening up a few windows and mucking around a little and then
"voila!" you can change this parameter to such and so...  But
what if I need to make that same change to 150 user profiles or
1500 physical files?  Wouldn't it be cool if there was some
notation or language that I could program to do it for me?  Call
it CL, or OCL, or JCL, or ILE CL, or anything else you want to
call it, but it sure seems to me that a scripting language is
necessary to be able to do things more than a few times without
the "video game" experience.  A lot of people like playing
video games, but I am not that fond of them when I have work to do.
I think abandoning CL is a crime.  Every little thing that
needs to be done should be doable through CL.  Then the scripting
language for the GUI could __be__ CL.  Turn on the recorder, do
something, turn off the recorder, and you have a "script" that
can be played back, or programmed to do something similar
many times...

... stepping gingerly down off of my soapbox...

Joel said he wasn't aware of any scripting language for the GUI.

He was trying hard to convince the audience that we should be
"apathetic" (his word, not mine) about the platform.  We have
cool technology, and a great operating system, but if the
work gets done on a box, any box, who cares?  He didn't say
it, but he works in the "Americas iSeries Brand" department of IBM,
and I think maybe I was being prepped for a future session where
I will be told that the important thing is that my application is
running on an IBM e(logo)Server.  Period.  I should be "apathetic"
to the iseries part of the e(logo)Server iSeries Model 38 + 400
naming nonsense.  I remain not very apathetic about the platform.
Never have been.

... aannnd I step gingerly down again...

>From: Rick Williams <rickw@aspersoft.com>
>
>Has IBM let it be known when OS/400 V5 will be available for general 
>distribution?
>
>Rick Williams
>

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