RE: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence

I don't disagree with a single word Scott, but I have yet to come across a
halfway well written GUI application! 

I suppose that it could be keyboard-chair interface, but I doubt it.

Duane Christen


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Scott Klement
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 9:56 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence


> Without wanting to sound as if I am completely negative, I could not
> disagree with you more.  I am of course only looking at this from the
> perspective of our industry, and more time is wasted playing with the g-d
> forsaken mouse and clicking on buttons than anything else I have ever
seen.

Will all due respect, there's absolutely no reason that a GUI application 
can't be keyboard controlled.  No GUI application that's even halfway well 
written requires a mouse.

GUI can do every single thing that a green screen application can do.  And 
it can do it in exactly the same way, if you want it to.

Saying that GUIs are bad because of the mouse is like saying that 5250 is 
bad because of the need for a field+ and field- key.  In both cases, you 
can design your applications so that they aren't required.

But it ALSO adds additional capabilities (by the score!) that green screen 
cannot do.

There are loads of productivity killers in green screen applications.  For 
example, what happens if the cursor is positioned on a spot on the screen 
where no input fields exist?  When the operator types, where do the 
keystrokes go?  A GUI can prevent this type of mistake.

When you type data into a field in a GUI you can have the program 
immediately validate the field and print information on the screen without 
stopping the operator who is keying.  For example, after keying in an 
insurance group number, it can automatically print the name of that group 
on the screen, or report an error, without the user having to press enter 
or stopping their typing.  This way, without pause, the typist can verify 
that he/she typed the correct group number.  It ENHANCES productivity for 
data entry.

I'm tired of the "green screen is better for heads down data entry" excuse 
that people keep using.  You may have had some bad experiences with 
software where the user interface wasn't well-designed for heads down data 
entry, but that's certainly not because 5250 is "better."

The advantage to 5250 applications is that you already know how to write 
them, and that you can write them extremely quickly.  Their very 
lightweight, and they work very well over a slow network or communications 
link.

But these advantages aren't good enough for your major, important 
applications.  When users sit in front of a computer all day long every 
day, we should give them the most productive, easiest to use, least error 
prone system that we can.  And there's no question that this will be a GUI 
interface.