RE: Who Uses WebSphere Express? -- MIDRANGE-L

I very much agree with most of Mark's remarks, but since I find myself right
on the line between the CGI and JSP/J2EE camps I thought that some comments
might be in order.

 >> I think it is too bad that discussions have to degenerate to this all
the time....

Agreed 100% - I always remember a friend of mine telling a tale of his days
with a brewery.  They had one brew that was sold under 5 different labels.
One night he was out for a drink and the "highlight" of his evening came
when a full blown brawl erupted out of a "my beer is better than yours"
argument.  As you've probably guessed - the contending beers were identical
except for the labels on the bottles!

 >> I have nothing against RPG-CGI.  ...... As for scalability, I think the
problem is that it is hard to define what that term means.

I think the problem is that IBM and other proponents of the JSP/J2EE
solution spread this FUD about CGI without explaining what they meant.  The
second thing is that not only is scalability not really that much of an
issue for many iSeries shops, but that the so-called advantages of WAS'
scalability are eaten by the additional horsepower required to run it in
many cases.  If I have 40% of CPU available to me, I can support a fair
number of users with a CGI solution.  WAS by itself will eat so much of that
capacity that there will be nothing left to run the apps until I upgrade.
It has been the anti-CGI camp's complete failure to mention this "tiny"
detail that has most annoyed me.  It also results in many shops not trying
anything.  IBM told them to stay away from CGI - WAS requires them to
upgrade.  Result?  They do their web stuff on MS/UN*x/Linux/.....

 >> Installing WebSphere involes running RSTLICPGM.  Is that hard?  .....
Configuring WebSphere is the matter of running a wizard with almost no
questions other than a name to use.  Is that hard?  ....

Agreed - although I haven't used the latest version and the wizards I have
worked with required a lot more than this.  However, the problems that I
have encountered are two-fold.  One - nothing is described in English (and
certainly not the iSeries variant of the language) - _everything_ feels
alien.  The language used appears to be a secondary dialect of Unixese.  The
other barrier arises when things go wrong.  This is the "is that hard?"
question that you omitted Mark.  It is way better than it was back in the
WAS 3/4 days but even so when an app fails, trying to work out why/where is
really tough.  I created a second version of the basic app structure that
Joe takes you through in his WDSC book.  As far as I know was created the
same way as the original app - but without referencing the book every step
of the way.  The original works.  My second version doesn't - it blows up
with incomprehensible error messages.  Somewhere I forgot to check (or
uncheck) a box in one of the wizards.  Which one? How to correct it?  Beats
me!

IBM have dealt with many of the WAS issues in terms of install and deploying
apps, but dealing with errors is still largely a matter of sacrificing
chickens on top of the CPU as far as I can see.  If I've missed some new
feature please tell me.

 >> If you love RPG-CGI, fine.  Go tell the world about it ..... But in
doing so why is it necessary to spread FUD about WebSphere?

Hey - they started it! <grin>  Although I've made that remark tongue in
cheek, there is a certain amount of truth in it.  In the past I don't recall
any of the CGI proponents doing anything except the normal "my product is
better than yours" type stuff.  Once IBM (and other J2EE proponents) started
into the "CGI is bad for you" type marketing with all the weight of mega
company's marketing machines, what choice did the CGI folks have?  IBM has
spent millions rubbishing CGI - is it really so surprising that others have
adopted the same marketing approach?


Jon Paris
Partner400

www.Partner400.com
www.RPGWorld.com