RE: Thats all folks! -- MIDRANGE-L

On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Joe Pluta wrote:
>
> But Scott, the AS/400 has had the most radical series of changes of any
> platform in the last year, five years, 10 years, whatever period you want.
> The fine folks at IBM are constantly expanding the machine.  Lately we've
> gotten ILE, Java, free-form RPG, WebSphere, Linux and LPAR, just to name a
> few.  Compared to us, Unix evolves at a snail's pace, and Windows doesn't
> evolve, it simply puts out new versions.  (What's the difference?  Well, our
> programs written 10 years ago still run - try that on a Windows machine.
> Except don't get me started on WebSphere SE and V5R2.)
>

Hmmmm... "radical series of changes".

ILE:   First of all, this is not a new thing, it's been around for, what?
       7 years?  Aside from activation groups, the concepts of modules and
       service programs aren't a new innovation.  They've existed on every
       other platform in the world for 20 years, and were long overdue in
       the iSeries arena.

Java:  This "radical new innovation" was originally developed for Sun's
       versions of Unix, as well as for Windows.  Then, was migrated to
       OS/400 much later.

Free-form RPG:  This is a great thing, I'm really glad they decided to
       do it.  But really...  a radical change?  It took them 30 years
       between the time that punch cards became obsolete and the time
       they finally stopped forcing fixed-position languages.   Just in
       the last few years alone, several whole new languages have been
       developed on other platforms.  Python, Ruby, etc.  That's somewhat
       more of a change than just allowing free-form, don't you think?

WebSphere:  I have no idea what this is.  I keep hearing the term,
       applied to all sorts of things, and I really don't know what
       it means.

Linux:  Am I the only one that sees the irony in this being listed here?
        I wonder when the PC will catch up and gain the ability to run
        Linux?   Those people who migrated from OS/400 to Linux will
        surely miss the ability to run Linux, especially since their
        stuck with the snail's pace that Unix evolves...

LPAR:   This is true, this is really cool.   Mainly because it allows you
        to take advantage of Linux.


Wow...  binding/modules/service programs were originally designed for
Unix.  Java was originally designed for Unix.  Web applications & TCP/IP
was originally designed for Unix.  Linux is a Unix-like operating system.
LPAR lets you run Unix on your iSeries.

What other new changes do we have... hmmm...  PASE?  QSHELL?  Ways
of emulating Unix.  Apache?  Perl?  FTP?  TELNET?  DNS?  All originally
developed for Unix.

You're right about one thing, though.   Programs written 10 years ago do
still work on the iSeries.   In fact, programs written 20 years ago still
run with little more than a re-compile.   Really, I suspect that this is
why most people are using iSeries today.   Not because of the amazing and
radical changes in the platform, but because people don't want/need to
change.

Currently, my FreeBSD (Unix) server has been running for 583 days without
interruption.  And, the interruption 583 days ago was due to it being
relocated to another building.   My iSeries, aside from the scheduled down
time every weekend, has been running for 7 months since the last disk
failure.  (We use RAID, but the disks aren't hot-swappable on this
machine... no biggie)

I consider both of those systems to be industrial-strength.

But, unlike OS/400, I don't need a Windows PC (and all of it's inherant
instability) to be a front-end to my FreeBSD box.  I can get the full
graphical/GUI capabilities of the operating system without involving
Windows.

Where does the iSeries shine?
   (1) Database
   (2) The ease of developing (now largely obsolete) green-screen apps
   (3) Job logs & other audit-trail type things
   (4) Error message dispatching/propagating

IBM has been focusing all of it's "radical" changes in the wrong
direction.   Instead of coming up with more ways to be like Unix, they
should be working on more ways to stand out.

What would I do, if I could make the decisions for the iSeries division?

(1) Create a new way of communicating with terminals, instead of the
     5250 data stream, that allows for graphical terminals.

(2) Make it just as easy to develop graphical applications on the
     iSeries as it is to develop green-screen.    Incorporate graphical
     controls into DDS, so existing software can immediately look
     graphical without changing the RPG/COBOL code.

(3) Lose the reliance of Windows for Ops Nav, etc.   Instead, use the
     graphical data stream.   Make a terminal emulator for Windows,
     of course, but also make it availble for Linux/BSD/MacOS, etc.
     Keep the PC side as simple as possible, so that a terminal can
     be used as a complete replacement.

The idea is, you write the software for the iSeries.  You deploy it
to the iSeries.  The only platform required to use it is the iSeries.

Software is very simple to write, because that's what business people
want when they're developing software.  They're not computer geeks like
Unix people, they're businessmen.  They want something easy that will
be modern and stable.

Don't use a web browser as a terminal.  They're unstable.  Every browser
displays things differently.  They are much more complicated to develop
software for than a green-screen.  They're designed for reading hyper text
documentation, not running an application in.   It has been proven time
and time again that client/server is expensive to maintain... this is the
main reason why the TCO of the iSeries is lower.   Web is a client/server
software!

Get the idea?  Keep the paradigms that have always made the iSeries
strong, but UPDATE THEM TO MODERN TIMES.