RE: webfacing and competing products

["Steve Richter" <srichter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Nathan M. Andelin
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 3:57 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: webfacing and competing products


>> from: "Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> I'll add that they're all a technological dead end, because they
>> rely on the 5250 data stream.  That's what makes PSC/400 so
>> much different and in my mind so superior.

>I agree that PCS/400 is different.  Screen scrapers extract data from
>pre-formatted streams before applying their own formatting, while PCS
>essentially transforms record buffers BEFORE any other formatting has
>occurred.

Nathan,

I think the problem with screen scraping is that the new end user
application is limited to the data provided by the host application that is
being scraped from.  The subfile record may only contain customer name and
not customer number.  Also, the subfile records may only contain a page of
the records that the user is interested in working with. ( how can the user
sort on order amount when the display buffer being scraped from only
contains 10 of the 100 orders of the customer? )  Whether the data is
scraped from a screen or from a pre dspf buffer, it still has the same
limitations.

-Steve