RE: Green screen to GUI

I simply don't agree with this sentiment.  As far as I can tell, IBM has
done EXACTLY the same thing for the GUI environment as they did for the
S/36.

1. They created an environment where your old programs would run.  S36EE
for the S/36 folks, and WebFacing or HATS for the 5250 world.

2. They created a completely different programming paradigm for new
development.  This is RPG/ILE for the S/36 folks, and WebSphere for the
green screen folks.

The only "pure" conversion was to S36EE.  You cannot run S/36 source
code natively on the iSeries.  There's no conversion tool to take
existing S/36 code and seamlessly turn it into service programs.  Heck,
it's hard to turn RPG II code into RPG III; I know, I converted an
entire financial package once.  Just converting internally described
files to externally described files was a major endeavor.

So, IBM let you run in S/36 mode, and that was good enough for many
people (there are still shops out there on S36EE).  However, the vast
majority of shops eventually converted up to RPG III, and some have even
made the transition to RPG IV and ILE.  Some, but by no means all,
because it requires an investment of time and money.  But S36 developers
paid that cost.  When did they learn PLISTs?  Or subfiles?  Or DDS?
They didn't have any of this on the S/36, yet they learned it all.  IBM
didn't learn it for them.

The move from green to GUI is even more traumatic.  While RPG II to RPG
III+ was primarily syntactic, the change from green to GUI is much more
like the change from RPG III to service programs and ILE; it requires a
complete change of mindset.  There is no magic conversion tool that will
allow you to do it.

But you CAN do it.  It's not really that difficult, just challenging.
But you have to be willing to spend the time and money to do it.  I can
teach you how to create robust client/server applications using JSP and
a very thin layer of Java, with all the back-end processing in RPG, in a
week.  But then you still have to be ready to write your RPG code as
servers, and be ready to start thinking in terms of HTML and CSS rather
than 5250 display attributes.

And if you aren't willing to make that investment, then IBM has once
again provided you a legacy environment with HATS and WebFacing.  Or you
can spend a littler more and get an advanced tool like PSC/400.  In
either case, you don't have to upgrade your skill set any more than you
did with the S36EE environment.

Joe


> From: Jeff Crosby
> 
> Until I read the above, I (in the words of the caller to Mr Obvious on
Bob
> &
> Tom) had "never made the connection".  It suddenly dawned on me how
well
> IBM
> handled things for us S/36 customers going to an AS/400.  It was a
> complete
> solution, end-to-end, at your company's pace, one step at a time,
> everything
> covered to the nth degree.  That's what IBM did, "provide a complete
> integrated solution for midrange customers" which is how IBM
cultivated
> such
> loyalty, while at the same time, we, as customers, could concentrate
on
> business solutions.