RE: IBM loses its Unix license - Jun. 16, 2003

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 11:04 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: IBM loses its Unix license - Jun. 16, 2003

>> You said this with a straight face? ;)  How old is the AS/400 technology?
>> There is a lot of technology out there that is cutting edge I
>> wouldn't touch
>> with a 10 foot pole.  there is a BIG difference between "old and
outdated"
>> and "proven stability".

>ILE, the CISC/RISC upgrade, LPAR, Java integration, EVI indexing - all of
>these are significant advancements that required true innovation, at least
>IMHO.  But I'm not a big Mac afficianado and by no means a *nix expert, so
>perhaps I shouldn't make sweeping statements.  Maybe you can share some
>technological innovations from the Mac/*nix side of the world?

my comments are strictly to encourage IBM to do better ...

ILE was a good improvement in its time.  But it does not provide namespaces,
exception handling, procedure overloading on parm signature and call
marshalling. It also makes no accomodation for RPG, the flagship language on
the as400. The lack of support for the VARYING string in ILE makes every RPG
proc a string overflow bug waiting to happen.  The missing thread support in
RPG puts the kibosh on vendors writing large scale applications in RPG.

LPAR is great.  IBM is ideally suited and does an outstanding job at
hardware. But where are the improvements in OS400 to enable partition to
partition connectivity?  ILE should marshall calls transparently from one
partition to another.  Just like windows has done for years.

JAVA?  Granted, this is something I know nothing about, but where are the
profits in it?  What does JAVA do for the many Windows/AS400 shops?  IBM
would be selling a lot more iSeries systems and all of us stakeholders would
be making a lot more $$ if VB and COM were integrated into the AS400 instead
of JAVA.

EVI indexing ....  never heard of it.

-Steve