Fwd: 400 & RPG to the Net

Hi Karl

Get the network guy to do the firewall and connection stuff, but understand
what he is doing - you will need to have a bit of a grip on ports/IP etc.

To help you decide whether to roll your own take a look at the CGIDEV
service program.
http://www.easy400.ibm.it/en

Brad Stone's book is pretty handy for helping you understand what is
actually going on and to get you started. Bob Cancillas book is a good read
too. For my money CGIDEV is the most practical way to go if you are going
to do it in house, particularly if you have some schedule pressure.

The vendors will no doubt speak up :)

Learning curve wise you will need to learn how to create a page in HTML -
this can be easy to get started but it will take more than a couple of days
to start to produce good looking pages with sensible layouts. Experiment
with this using a text editor on a PC.

If you will be generating this form the AS/400 Frontpage or a similar tool
will be of limited advantage. I don't think the code they produce is not
even worth copying although someone may be able to point you at something
that generates code worth copying.

Ignore using style sheets by coding colours and attributes into your pages
at your peril. Put off using CSS to format your pages only as long as it
takes for you to understand what the various HTML functions do. Topstyle
http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/index.asp may be of some assistance here.

Dabble with Javascript as there will come a time when you need it, but you
can probably put this off until after you have got through HTML and CSS.

Web server wise I would get the redbook and use Apache from the start.
Others may direct you towards the original ("classic") HTTP server but I
can't see the point in it now. I like the named virtual pages Apache offers
anyway. I found some benefit in fooling with Apache on a PC but it wasn't
on the 400 at the time.

If you don't have a development machine using a text editor, CSS editor,
and Apache Windows binary distribution can help enormously in getting to
grips with what is going on - especially because you can play with this
stuff at home.

The WEB400 mailing list right here on http://www.midrange.com/ and the
ignite400 mailing list and web site http://www.ignite400.org are also
valuable resources.

You are in for a fun ride. I think what your management have offered you is
a great opportunity :)

Good luck

regards
Evan Harris


>I have been given the task to "get on the Internet now".
>We have a 720 at V4R4 and going to V5 this year at some point.
>All applications are written in RPG and home grown.
>
>I have a programming staff of 1 junior pgmr and 1 beginner pgmr plus
>myself.,1 network guy and 2 operators.
>
>We would like to start with inquiry and then be able to allow our agency
>force to quote/app direct to our 400.
>In other words live real time data access to our 400 database files. Read
>and write.
>
>I have investigated many ways to do this. I have been given a modest budget
>to accomplish this.
>Security from management's side is not an issue until it happens. I believe
>the opposite and want to be smart.
>
>I am toying with putting 400 on Internet with a Sonic Wall box as my
>firewall on network.
>Either develop applications with E-RPG or use some product that transforms
>RPG into GUI code as you develop
>so it can be used either green screen (in house) or GUI (net).
>
>I do not want to maintain same program 2X. (1 in house 1 on net).
>
>IBM came in a gave us a proposal to add a 170 as an Internet box.
>Management immediately threw this out
>as too costly.
>
>Has anyone had any experience with these so called Internet tools and if so
>good or bad idea?