RE: Edit tools (was: RE: Record size limitation in RPG - MQ Series)

EssayLength

| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:midrange-l-bounces+jt=ee.net@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of James
| Rich
| Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 1:30 PM


| You make some good points.

Well, "even a blind hen..."

| Consider the above paragraph from the point of
| view of a one man shop that has to admin several different platforms.  In
| that scenario, the iSeries is the one that is the least consistent with
| the others.  It is certainly self-consistent, but it is the most different
| from the other platforms.

Not to imply above, but you make a good point also.

| I'm not advocating that any given platform be made to work like any other.

Hm.  Having read ahead a li'l, it might appear otherwise...;-D  That's the
way of things.  But there are a LOTta things that leads to platforms working
more like each other, in addition to ease-of-use.

| If a certain way of doing things is advantageous, I think a platform
| should stick to it even if it is not consistent with other platforms.

Somebody (sorry, I forget who) posted to effect that, with 5L presumably
coming soon, *nix folks are going to be coming more often to the platform
and the M-L lists.  I would contend that we've just passed through that
stage these past 3 or 4 years.  As I posted in past, this is why I find it
fairly amazing there are so relatively FEW threads that are more heat than
light in the M-L fora.

But the comments are fairly numerous along the lines-a "why doesn't the 400
work like 'this-that-or-the-other'", where it's either *nix or Windows.
And, other than myself, I rarely see comments "why doesn't the 400 work more
like it did in the 80's" because that's just assumed to be a reactionary
view of an old lame dinosaur.  In fact, this assumption is posted pretty
frequently, in almost those exact words, over the past few years by folks
that hardly worked on a 400 until the 90's or later.

Iow, there's plenty of good reasons for both sides of the issue, but only
one side (actually three, being the *nix is easier/Windows is easier
sides/"free" is easier overlapping-sides) predominates in the discussions on
these lists.  As it does throughout the Industry.

| My
| point is simply that if you have ten machines that do 'ps ax' and one that
| does 'WKRACTJOB', that one will be the one that seems inconsistent.  I
| love having 'ls' and 'chmod', etc. on iSeries.  I wish I could do 'ls' on
| windows.

This is, to me, the advantage of the "400 way" I posted previously.  Which
is (again to me) perhaps better summed up as dealing with day-to-day
realities that computing shops face.  Pretty amazing, to me, what all you
CAN do on a 400...  My regrets in this regard are based on my personal
opinion that it would have been more effective to have put AIX on a 400 a
long time ago, and spent a few dimes on improving the base 400 stuff, which
has suffered.  (I say that knowing that some of the base 400 stuff, mainly
SLIC, has been Vastly improved...  I'm talking the layer above SLIC here..
like improving CL and DDS and SEU and/or re-writing CODE, etc...)

| At any rate, for a one man shop with multiple platforms, having similar
| commands across them all makes things easier.

Granted.  But I'm of the opinion that, whether it's an edge-case or not, a
1-man shop supporting multiple platforms (Especially 3 platforms, when 2 are
hard enough) is a mistaken approach.  In the shop I ran, which was very
user-driven, I was very fortunate that the users also accepted the
responsibilities that went along with that:  Having immense capability at
the desktop meant that they largely supported themselves, although the
responsibilities were obiously shared.

| Of course, you could just take a shotgun to all the Windows machines and
| get rid of their misery and yours...

Haha!  Enjoy a good-un like this, and is why I replied when I should be
getting work done.  And lemme TELL ya that, through the late 80's and since
I've sometimes/often felt this way.

AutoBio(*On)
OvrTopics(*Mgmt IgnoringRealities...;-)
(Like when our Only PC "expert" was promoted to the parent company that
half-owned the biz I worked in.  My bad, as my boss (CEO) informed me to
"think about how well you could get along without Rxx" a few months previous
to this.  I thought about it, didn't like the idea aTALL because our staff
of 9? (which was half operations at the time) had just about exactly NO PC
expertise...  Didn't like the idea ONE BIT, the more I thought about it, so
did nothing...  I was even lamer then than I am now, and didn't understand
"think about it" to mean "get yer butt prepared in case, because the 'in
case' is pretty likely to happen"!)..
DltOvrT
AutoBio(*Off)

At any rate, over the past decade or two I've decided there's good and bad
to everything, and Windows and *nix have a lotta power that, in reality,
shouldn't be ignored because it can't be ignored.  (Although I would-a
prefered OS/400 on the desktop way back when (but that was basically OS/2
WorkPlace Shell and.. yada, yada...)).

Funny thing is that, due to the economics, it's likely a low-end p/iSeries
is probably gonna price out 'bout same as a high-end desktop PC ($2K+ to
$4K?), so it'll be interesting to see how things shake out next few years,
especially as Grid (possibly) kicks in.  And during this time mebbe even
*nix'll get the UI ESR dreams of, (ie, the 400 command line, plus..
etc...;-) one way or t'other...

--

| James Rich
|
| Zvpebfbsg vf abg gur nafjre.
| Zvpebfbsg vf gur dhrfgvba.
| AB (be Yvahk) vf gur nafjre.
|         -- Gnxra sebz n .fvtangher sebz fbzrbar sebz gur HX,
| fbhepr haxabja

Still interested, possibly Very interested...  Mebbe one-a these days here
"real soon now"...;-D