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I understand your points. And commands are great prompting utilities and,
in my opinion, are terribly underused.
I don't buy your point about the interactive error handling being
'effective'. Having users make the decision: C,D,I,R is not leaving the
problem in the best hands. Dang, but if I don't wish my colleagues used
more time, themselves, before taking an option.
a) Gee the tape initialization failed for last nights backup. Let's take
an R. DURING THE BUSIEST PART OF THE DAY!
b) Error on a variable, let's take a C, INSTEAD OF A 'D' TO DUMP THE
VARIABLES!
And Steve, while you avoided talking about DDS, and stuck with Commands,
(smart move, by the way) I bring up the point that maybe we stick with what
we are familiar with. Just some simple glancing into html makes me drool
that DDS had such support. Not knocking you buddy, I don't know your
background at all.
But getting back to Joe's points. I feel that anything that can be run in
batch, should. Like most of the printing that your commands generate. As
much as you can reasonably do to separate the business logic from the
presentation, the better.
Rob Berendt
==================
A smart person learns from their mistakes,
but a wise person learns from OTHER peoples mistakes.
"Steve Richter"
<srichter@AutoCoder To:
<MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
.com> cc:
Sent by: Subject: Re: IBM getting rid
of RPG
owner-midrange-l@mi
drange.com
07/30/2001 11:39 AM
Please respond to
MIDRANGE-L
Rob,
The Joe Pluta approach adds value/functionality to our platform. That is a
good thing. And as he and you point out, there are solutions to each
situation I describe. but there are also costs.
Simplicity is one cost.
I can use sda to create a simple menu, create commands that front some
report producing rpg pgms, add these commands to the menu, insert some
selective prompting to the commands and in little time I have something
functional and easy to use for the user.
To move this to the web, out of the reach of cfint, I have to scrap all of
this. Something that was simple and effective has to be replaced. The web
solution, in my view, has to be just as simple.
re wrkoutq, wrkwtr, wrksbmjob ...The possible loss of a common user
interface is another cost.
If I can launch ops nav with parms that tell it to display a particular
outq, that would be an adequate alt to "wrkoutq outq(xxxx)". Writing a
custom java script version of WrkOutq is a solution, but the cost is likely
to be the common user interface. Each web page version of WrkOutq will work
differently. End result: user confusion.
( There is also the $ cost of the custom approach. Writing the web version
of WrkJobq takes time = money. WrkOutq ??Outq(xxx) is free. )
re exception handling. consider a cl pgm. the default excp handler enables
cancel, ignore or retry of a failed stmt. Enables you to investigate the
cause of the error, then retry or ignore the error so the pgm can continue
running. Very simple and effective. Any excp handling code you put in the
pgm actually interferes with this process. I welcome a technical discussion
of how to link the interactive web user with the excp messages of the batch
running pgm, but be prepared for a long discussion<g>.
All these problems because ibm wants to play its cfint games.
Steve Richter
-----Original Message-----
From: rob@dekko.com <rob@dekko.com>
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
Date: Monday, July 30, 2001 11:13 AM
Subject: Re: IBM getting rid of RPG
>
>Steve,
>
>Granted some things will be done in interactive, however not everything
>that is currently done in interactive needs to be there.
>
>I think what Joe is saying is that if you key an inventory transaction and
>it has to update 5 files and calculate new balances and zap off an email
to
>someone that we just reached a negative balance, and , and , and. Then
>perhaps you would be better served to break this up. The presentation
part
>will do the screen entry. This sends the process off to a data queue or
>something to do the rest of the process. Now if you've done this right,
>and some snot nosed kid comes along and wants the presentation done in web
>or NT client than you already have the back end processing done. And you
>get to keep your back end in RPG, if you desire. Which is where any
biased
>RPG programmer will tell you that the only competent business programming
>can be coded.
>
>Have you ever written a batch process before? Yes, on occasion an error
>will occur. But you've handled this right? There must be a zillion
>techniques. No difference in this process. The beauty of it is that the
>user won't be guessing as to what option to take. Your message monitoring
>will notify someone better able to handle the situation.
>
>Some people really may wish to study alternative methods of presentation
>than DDS. For example the hoops that I had to jump through to maintain a
>variable length field for comments which may exceed a screen size, was
>enough to vomit. This versus 1 single line of html.
>
>Also, some of the commands you mentioned: WRKSPLF, WRKWTR, and more,
>WRKSYSACT, etc are probably better served in Operations Navigator. Think
>of all the stuff IBM is giving you for free! Stuff that they charge you
>for in 5250 land. For example WRKSYSACT requires that you purchase
>Performance Tools. The functions of this are given free with Operations
>Navigator.
>
>Rob Berendt
>
>==================
>A smart person learns from their mistakes,
>but a wise person learns from OTHER peoples mistakes.
>
>
>
> "Steve Richter"
> <srichter@AutoCoder To:
<MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
> .com> cc:
> Sent by: Subject: Re: IBM
getting
rid of RPG
> owner-midrange-l@mi
> drange.com
>
>
> 07/28/2001 01:32 PM
> Please respond to
> MIDRANGE-L
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Joe,
>
>What do you do about
>
> cmd prompting
>
> any ibm cmd like WrkSplf, WrkSbmJob, esp WrkOutq and WrkWtr
>
> Receiving a break message
>
> Exception handling - rpg or cl pgm hits an unmonitored exception msg.
>The ibm default exception handler takes over and wants to prompt for
>Cancel,
>dump or ignore
>
>I like your concept, but in practice these situations have to be dealt
>with,
>No?
>
>Steve Richter
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Joe Pluta <joepluta@PlutaBrothers.com>
>To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
>Date: Saturday, July 28, 2001 1:55 PM
>Subject: RE: IBM getting rid of RPG
>
>
>>There are ways around the interactive tax. In fact, I'll be doing a
>seminar
>>on exactly that topic at COMMON. The basic idea is to modify your
>programs
>>to run in batch and talk to a data queue instead of a display file. Once
>>you do that, you can pretty quickly attach a user interface, either thick
>>client or thin. A thick client can be written in VB or Java, or you can
>use
>>a servlet engine such as WebSphere or Tomcat to run your applications via
>a
>>browser. It's fast, powerful, flexible and relatively painless.
>>
>>This way, your primary business logic is still written in RPG, which I
>>contend is the best language for defining business rules in the business,
>>primarily because of its tight integration with the database. And, once
>>you've started separating your business logic from your presentation, you
>>can start looking at moving towards a true client/server architecture,
>which
>>is where I believe the iSeries will truly outpace any other platform.
>>
>>Joe
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
>>> [mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of William A Pack
>>> Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2001 11:09 AM
>>> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
>>> Subject: IBM getting rid of RPG
>>>
>>>
>>> I liked Mr. Rockwell's comments. IBM is trying everything
>>> to get people to
>>> abandon current applications and migrate to something they want to
sell,
>>> like Java or Domino. They are good alternatives for new apps,
>>> but if I have
>>> a business running for 5-10 years on good software, why should I
>>> change just
>>> because IBM wants me to? IBM is going to piss off quite a few
>customers,
>>> who will remember the favor that IBM did them by jacking up the cost of
>>> interactive workload. If they have to change applications, my
>>> guess is they
>>> will be implemented on a cluster of Wintel boxes, just to return the
>favor
>>> to IBM. I really want to now the technical reasons IBM has for costing
>on
>>> interactive features. They claim it is harder to do 5250 now that 3
>years
>>> ago. Why?
>>> The System 3/x family was sold as a programmerless systems.
>>> The AS/400 was
>>> sold as a system that will maintain investment in applications
>>> and business
>>> practices. Now, the only thing that sets the 400 apart from the sea of
>>> Intel based clones is the single manufacturer. Looks like the future
>>> belongs to Wintel and C#.
>>
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