RE: Lower End AS/400s -- MIDRANGE-L

> From: Konrad Underkofler
>
> Joe, check out the market, people and companies vote with their feet!
> This is not even debatable anymore. We are discussing the death, end or
> other "marketing" problem of the AS/400. Most of the TCO stuff favoring
> the 400 is silly and stupid. If there was a REAL SUBSTANTIVE DIFFERENCE
> companies would pay anything to have that extra reliability!
(...)
> The reality says cross platform or obsolete. Even games are this way!
> Where is the killer iSeries application? Most are overpriced crap.
> Even the largest of the iSeries application houses JD Edwards is
> moving to an open architecture.
(...)
> It may be business logic but it sure won't be object oriented code. Is
> anyone actually doing new major development in RPG these days?

What your argument comes down to is this: everybody's doing cross-platform,
object-oriented development, so I better do it too.

Congratulations!  You are now officially part of the server farm marketing
hype!  But before I buy your platitudes lock, stock and barrel, let's do a
little bit of due diligence:


"People and companies vote with their feet."

Yep.  Of course, these are the same people that bought stock in companies
with sock puppets.  The most UNreliable marketing indicator on the planet is
what the "people" are doing, because they will change direction in a flash.
Ask SSA about that.


"Most TCO stuff favoring the 400 is silly and stupid."

Which part of uptime, reliability or scalability is stupid?  None of my
clients think those things is stupid.  Maybe yours do.


"The reality says cross platform or obsolete."

Bull.  Reality doesn't talk about much, and when she does, it's rarely about
something as mundane as platform specificity.  No, understand this single
point: the people who say cross platform or obsolete are... (drum roll)...
PEOPLE WHO SELL CROSS-PLATFORM.  Especially consultants with cheap labor
forces.  Teach 'em once, pay 'em $25/hr, charge $75/hr.  What a world.


"Even games are this way!"

I have to disagree with this statement.  Because there are tons of games
released "for Playstation Only" or only for consoles, not PC.


"It may be business logic but it sure won't be object oriented code."

You say that as if it's a negative.  Object oriented code isn't somehow
intrinsically better than procedural code.  In some cases, where code reuse
is important, OO can be a benefit.  In other cases, such as those where the
rules change often or need to be driven by a database, procedural code,
especially the kind you can write with ILE RPG, is just as powerful, and
often with a much quicker time to market, due to the heavy startup costs of
a true OO project.


I guess we disagree on what's important.  Somebody has convinced you that
"object oriented" and "cross platform" are somehow requirements for business
development.  I continue to argue that such standards in general benefit the
consulting firms far more than they benefit the end user.  Perhaps I've
overlooked some fact, but in general, I can't agree with any of your
assertions.

Joe