RE: VARPG (was Design Change Requests)

That fertile ground has remained fallow for many years.

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: VARPG (was Design Change Requests)
> From: Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Wed, January 11, 2006 9:42 pm
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> There is a very large group of shops that know and use RPG, have an 
> experienced staff that know the company business rules, and have a full 
> and useful iSeries installation.  I have got to believe that many of 
> those shops would love to use their own staff to install some gui 
> applications for their organization.  Some of these have hired a few of 
> these scads of Java programmers and have half finished projects all 
> around them.
> 
> This, to me, is the fertile ground for VARPG.
> 
> 
> Michael Ryan wrote:
> > But think how small the market is...just iSeries shops that want to write
> > thick client stuff and don't want to use MS tools or Java. You can't hire
> > anyone except an RPG programmer to do it, while you can hire scads of C# or
> > Java folks. VARPG doesn't make sense, and that's why it hasn't taken off.
> > 
> > On 1/11/06 03:35 PM, "Marco Facchinetti" <facchinetti@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>VARPG is a language and beside Ibm not spending money in it to make it
> >>better and competitive the only part to blame (?) are Iseries developers...
> >>If only more people push using it we can have a decent tool, people there in
> >>Toronto are really good, only they have a 0$ budget.
> >>It's RPG, real rpg with a GUI interface, the learning curve for an RPG
> >>programmer is quite short.
> >>About the the "thick client" problem I can only say it's a non existing
> >>problem. Install it on a file server (any flavour: windows, unix, ifs or
> >>samba) and it works. VARPG isn't so dependent from windows, it has his own
> >>runtime and there is no need of setup complicated environment.
> >>
> >>Marco
> >>
> >>--- Jim Franz <franz400@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>>I don't know why VARPG can't gain traction Marco...
> >>>
> >>>1. Because IBM rarely even mentions the product...
> >>>2. Over the years it's only been casually mentioned in the trade press - a
> >>>
> >>>few articles, a few books, and as usual, many of us tried it out in it's
> >>>very early days had problems.
> >>>3. Because many software vendors went the other routes (c##,java,vb) so
> >>>they 
> >>>could write to more than 1 platform, and those languages were recognized
> >>>by 
> >>>the world outside of iSeries. IT buyers
> >>>are often looking for the most "popular" language, counting on a steady
> >>>supply of (cheap) coders
> >>>4. the already mentioned "thick client" maintenance issues
> >>>(i also wish more had adopted it. the iSeries could be far better accepted
> >>>
> >>>in the marketplace if perceived as graphical).
> >>>just my opinion
> >>>jim franz
> >>>----- Original Message -----
> >>>From: "Booth Martin" <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >>>To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >>>Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 12:02 PM
> >>>Subject: Re: VARPG (was Design Change Requests)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I don't know why VARPG can't gain traction Marco.  I find it frustrating
> >>>>to see firms embrace Windows but avoid VARPG.  Where I've seen it tried,
> >>>>people like it.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>Marco Facchinetti wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>>--- Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>Oh.  Then it is a design issue.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>VARPG uses a runtime environment.  If you try to use that model then,
> >>>>>>yes, updates would be tiresome.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>However the runtime is only about 15 megs.  Building it into the
> >>>>>>application locks the two together, and updates are no longer an issue.
> >>>>>> I stored the application (including runtime) on a server.  When a
> >>>
> >>>user
> >>>
> >>>>>>opens the desktop version, the desktop version checks to see if its
> >>>>>>still King.  If not, it replaces itself with the newer version.
> >>>>>>Downloading 20 megs once in a while from a server is not much of a
> >>>>>>burden imho.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Still, the fact remains, VARPG can't gain traction.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Why??
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Marco
> >>>>>
> >>>>>__________________________________________________
> >>>>>Do You Yahoo!?
> >>>>>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> >>>>>http://mail.yahoo.com
> >>>>
> >>>>-- 
> >>>>-----------------------------------
> >>>>Booth Martin
> >>>>http://martinvt.com
> >>>>-----------------------------------
> >>>>-- 
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> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>__________________________________________________
> >>Do You Yahoo!?
> >>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> >>http://mail.yahoo.com 
> > 
> > 
> 
> -- 
> -----------------------------------
> Booth Martin
> http://martinvt.com
> -----------------------------------
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