RE: Replacing IIS with iSeries 400 -- MIDRANGE-L

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MDC Information Systems
>
> Joe,
>
> I'm quite calm re the technical stuff, I'm waving my arms and shouting
> because this is exactly the type of generalization that YOU would not
> accept.

I always attack bogus generalizations with facts, Mike.  Let's see yours.


> While you use 'rarely' & 'chances are' later in your paragraph the clear
> message of  the opening sentence is 'don't look at a 4GL' (and
> remember this
> is a recommendation to someone who asked an innocent question).

No, my comment was that a 4GL is my personal choice of last resort.  Always
has been, always will be, for the reasons I outlined.  Don't start putting
words in my mouth.  I hate that.


> Your responses (re code generators, not 4GLs) confirms to me that you are
> not talking from a position of knowledge on this subject.

Oh man, I hate when people insist that their tool of choice is a "4GL"
rather than a code generator.  What exactly makes your tool not a code
generator?  Unless it's a very sophisticated optimizer, similar to those
used in compilers, the tool is a code generator.  Unless you use flow
analysis to remove unnecessary code, you're just generating template-based
3GL code.  To be honest, I don't know which LANSA does these days, but the
last time I looked nobody had a true 4GL.


> IMHO
> your issues 1
> to 6 don't merit comment as they to not relate to modern 4GLs.

It's easy to say that they don't merit comment when you can't comment on
them.  LANSA doesn't generate any unnecessary moves?  I find that difficult
to believe.  Your field names are nice and readable, and so is the generated
code?  You have round trip regeneration?

Or is it your position that LANSA will generate all the code I ever need,
and I'll never have to touch it?  If that's the case, then more power to
you, but you'd never be able to generate the types of code I write.
Remember that I write lots of middleware, which requires very low-level
programming.  I've never found any code generation tool that can keep up
with my requirements.  For example, how well do you support IFS stream
files?  Complex APIs?  Pointers?  Can you write a condition handler in
LANSA?  A database trigger?

On the other hand, it's quite possible that for business application code,
LANSA may be good enough.  I haven't tried to write an MRP generation in
LANSA, or a bill of materials explosion, which are two of my tests, so I'm
not sure.


> Finally, your 2 panel question can be easily handled in LANSA using 'on
> condition' logic and never looking at a line of generated code (and the
> dropdown list can be dynamic from DB2).

Great.  Show us the code that would do this.  Of course the data has to come
from a DB2 file.  Not only that, the condition is based on the number of
records retrieved from the database.  Be sure that the field is returned
even if it's constant (which would likely mean a disabled text field,
although for the sake of a nice look, you might want to instead use a text
string and a hidden input field).

Joe