Re: AS/400

[Lou Forlini <lforlini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob,

>I don't follow this analogy at all.  Joe seems to be offering virtually an all
>win solution ( although I haven't tried it).  A better analogy might 
>be that he
>is offering you a new smart up-to-date body shell for your existing 
>chassis and
>engine which can be in two instantly switchable styles, 5250 (sedan) or GUI
>(coupé), and you avoid paying the tax on your existing bodyshell. 
>Sounds good to
>me.  Doesn't seem upside down nor, from looking at Joe's web site, 
>do the changes
>seem very difficult to implement.

    Take a proposal for making this kind of change to one of our local 
clients (10-15 person shops).  They would either laugh you out of the 
room (for the cost), or look at you as if you were insane.  Which, of 
course, you would be for proposing to alter the mass of application 
systems that are currently working in order to avoid some artificial 
limit that IBM has imposed.

>I imagine that the cost would be a fraction of that of moving 
>platforms.  Joe's
>technique involves separating UI logic from business logic.  This is 
>something I
>always do on the AS/400. Are you saying that this is not possible on other
>platforms?

    Uh no, that is the opposite of what I said.  The implementation 
technique is not applicable to other platforms, not the design.

>If so why would you want to leave the iSeries?  You know as well as
>me that this idea is platform independent.  He also uses Java.  This is not
>unique to the iSeries either.  Joe's ideas seem to use standard technology.

    I don't have any quarrel with the technique at all.  I've done a 
lot of client-server stuff using data queues and sockets.  But I used 
it where it made sense from an application design basis, not just for 
the sake of avoiding some kind of limit.

    Do you contend that writing client-server apps is just as easy as 
using a traditional DDS display file?  If so, why isn't everybody 
doing it that way?  I can point you to 2 shops full of people who 
have done absolutely *zero* coding this way.

>I disapprove strongly of the interactive charge.  But you have to 
>consider it as
>part of the total cost of ownership or use a technique like Joe's to avoid it.

    To me it seems like a losing proposition either way.  You can pay 
IBM's tax, or you can put all of your existing plans on hold and pay 
your programmers to change everything.  These shops are finally 
recovering from Y2K, they're not going to drop everything again just 
to run in place.

>It seems that me that you have made up your mind and you are now trying to
>justify your decision to us. We are not your peers.  I get the impression from
>your web site that you run your own AS/400 software house.  If so, you need to
>justify the decision to yourself. Perhaps this is your problem - you cannot.

    I never said my business was leaving the market.  I'm telling you 
what my clients are telling me.  I happen to agree with them, 
especially because whatever IBM does to make their apps run crappy 
affects mine as well.

    Regards,

    - Lou Forlini
      Software Engineer
      System Support Products, Inc.
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