RE: webfacing and competing products

> From: trevor perry
>
> First, "screen scraping". Our friend Joe

Oh, it's going to be one of those days, I can see.  <sigh>

> slams products that are "screen scrapers" because they are not JSP.

Because they are not open.

> creen scraping does not refer any more to
> reading a 5250 data stream, but it now includes any product that simply
> recreates the 5250 data stream in a new Windows-type frame -
> including HTML.

Trevor, thank you for trying to make us swallow your marketing bilge, but
despite your efforts, screen scraping is just what it has always been:
sitting on the 5250 data stream, just like newlook does.


> If your product simply recreates the 24x80 (or 27x132)
> experience, then you
> have just "screen scraped". Joe's product may be technologically
> intriguing,
> but along with many of the competition, he is just taking what
> you have, and
> deploying the same stuff in a browser window. Screen scraping does not get
> you far along the GUI road.

> If a vendor is calling
> my application software a "pig", then I would be a little
> concerned at their ability to understand the challenges I am
> about to face.

I love listening to marketing doublespeak.  Is taking what you have and
redploying it good or bad?  Let us know where you stand on that question
someday, will you?

Anyway, PSC/400 is nothing like any other product out there, except perhaps
WebFacing.  It is a radically different approach.  It is an OO Facade over
the traditional server/client model.  The server/client model includes
interfaces such as CCP NEP/MRT, CICS and 5250.

Do you realize that the largest asset these people have is their legacy
programs and more importantly their legacy programmers?  They should be able
to continue developing in COBOL or RPG and have one guy with industry
standard JSP skills to pretty up the final product.  The product should then
be available to anybody with a browser.  That's what PSC/400 does.

If you need a fat client, newlook is as good a choice as any, I suppose.
But fat clients are rarely needed in the business world, which is why you
don't see a fat-client eBay or a fat-client Yahoo or a fat-client Amazon, or
Best Buy, or Circuit City, or Ameritrade or Ing or Citibank or...

Fat clients is in most cases the wrong UI choice.


> You may have to learn JSP, you may have to learn Websphere, or
> you may have
> to learn newlook.

WebSphere is an IBM standard, JSP is a worldwide open standard, and newlook
is proprietary.  Not really the same, Trevor.


> The more you learn, the better the end result,

Except that with newlook, this doesn't translate except to more newlook.


> And, if someone says they have a thin client, but you need
> to install a Java Servlet or Applet - you just installed a fat
> client.

As has been pointed out before, your lack of technical expertise in this
area is really quite severe - servlets never reside on the the client.  The
JSP Model II architecture uses pure industry standard HTML to communicate
with browsers.

I think you may want to review your knowledge in this area.  You probably
should understand at least the basics of the architecture before you offer
any advice.  I can critique fat client designs because I've designed thin
and thick client interfaces for over 20 years, and of course, I literally
wrote the book on revitalization.  You say you understand how my software
works, but all of the concepts (including a complete working example of all
the software) are actually available publicly in my book, "eDeployment: The
Fastest Path to the Web".


> One P.S.
> It is very apparent that Joe does not understand newlook, but has simply
> read some marketing material. On the other hand, I do not fully understand
> his software - my comments are made from reading his marketing
> material and
> his numerous sales pitches on these forums. I believe I have
> represented his
> software correctly.

I understand newlook fine.  It's a fat client with two deployment options.
One is a screen scraper, the otehr uses client/server hooks.  The point is,
nobody can use newlook out of the box to redeploy a 1500 screen system
overnight without using the screen scraper component.

With PSC/400, you can.