RE: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence THE MYTH THAT SHOU LD DIE

I miss the good old days!!

======================

Larry Ketzes
Senior Security Project Analyst
American Life Insurance Company

One ALICO Plaza
600 King Street
Wilmington, DE 19801
Phone: 302-594-2146
Mobile: 302-559-1631
Email: larry.ketzes@xxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Larry Bolhuis
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 7:29 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence THE MYTH THAT SHOULD
DIE

I quote no-one in particular but respond to this post in general........

I have been reading this thread (or should we say ROPE both because it 
is so thick and because many seem to be attempting use it to hang 
themselves) with considerable interest and would like to point out what 
I think I see.

1) Many say Green Screen is better than GUI.
I have in fact made this statement a time or two and sometimes it is 
true. However the generalizations made here are often just silly. A 
badly written green screen sucks. (Try using JDA for a day, 
AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!! There I got that out. ) A badly written GUI sucks 
GUIly. Even when something works as expected it can still be stupid. 
e.g. A pop up box comes up with only one button and the button is 
labeled "OK", it has focus and pressing ENTER or space bar will take the 
OK action. However the text says "A Severe Irreversible Unrecoverable 
Terminal Error has occurred." This is most certainly *NOT* OK!!

2) Many say GUI is better than Green Screen.
I have in fact made this statement a time or two and sometimes it too is 
true. Again generalizations of this are also wrong. Depending on what 
you are doing *BOTH* may be wrong. When we check books out at the local 
library there is an interface that the librarians use. I have no clue if 
it's green or GUI but they do this: Scan the bar code on the library 
card. Scan the bar code on each book. Say :"Have a nice day." It takes 
usually between 10 and 15 seconds total unless my bookworm daughter is 
there in which case it takes 30 seconds because of all the books!

So what does all this have to do with System i? Only that System i 
applications STEREOTYPICALLY have green screen interfaces. 
STEREOTYPICALLY these are considered bad. So we got a bad thing attached 
to us so we are bad. Well, let's break that!!

We can spend our energy whining about a name change or the color of our 
interfaces rather let's spend it on helping each other do the BEST for 
the problem at hand! Sure we'll have to fix problems along the way but 
even Thomas Edison said: "even if he had tried 500 or 1000 different 
variations on an experiment and not one had worked, then he had learned 
500 or 1000 ways not to proceed with the experiment."

So let's fail along the way a few times but let's learn and share what 
WORKS instead of carping about change. Use the tools we have to make 
everything we have even better than it is. Not change for changes sake 
but change for the better!

I wish that all the energy that has been pushed in this thread about GUE 
and GREEN and whathaveyou would be focused on what System i does not 
just OK, not just Good, or even Great, but best, THE BEST.

The worlds best database. Built in, not on.
The only database that boasts BOTH a native AND the most SQL compliance 
of anyone.
The only database that is SO self managing that users ignore the h--k 
out of it yet it just runs.
The only machine that is so resistant to viruses that so far as we know 
it has never had one. Not just today, EVER.
The only machine with such solid security that properly set up, it's 
virtually impossible to break in.
The only machine that doesn't Sometimes runs multiple applicaionts, 
rather it nearly ALWAYS runs multiple applications and does so solidly.
The machine that scales THIRTY THOUSAND percent with EXACTLY the same 
operating system.
The only truly 64 bit object oriented machine top to bottom.
The machine that allows expansion of RAID sets, Dis k pools, HSL loops, 
Towers all ON THE FLY!
The machine that supports more operating environments than Elizabeth 
Taylor has had names.

Now this may sound like preaching to the choir here, but man, the choir 
I'm hearing needs some serious preachin!!

Permit me a small diversion:

"I'm old, and I'm ANGRY!

In my day we didn't have PCs. PCs were considered EVIL! If you got a PC 
people would talk about you, and the other developers would have a 
meeting about you! Them PCs had Color, and screens with more than 80 
characters, and some had pictures on them! In my day we had Terminals. 
We had green screens and twinax. We'd holler at them people in 
engineerin and graphics desine: HEY! WHAT's THAT THING WITH THE TAIL IN 
YER HAND YA OLD BAT!" <ha ha ha> LEAVIN CHEESE ON YER DESK AGAIN YA 
DIRTY BUGGER! <he he he> That's the way it was. AND WE LIKED IT!

In my day we didn't let the users tell us what they needed! In my day we 
gave them programs and told them to use them. If it didn't do what they 
wanted they could fill our forms requesting changes. And we would lose 
them and do what we wanted. That's the way it was. AND WE LIKED IT!

In my day, we didn't let users download stuff. We kept everything inside 
the server. It was our data and we controlled it. Besides we had 
undecipherable codes in there and MMDDYY dates with century offsets and 
other stuff they wouldn't understand. Besides, downloading stuff would 
just make it too available and it would just be misunderstood. Users 
can't be trusted with data. That's the way it was. AND WE LIKED IT!

In my day we did backups at lunch! We took the system when WE needed it. 
It was ours after all, and we deserved evenings and weekends at home 
too! That's the way it was. AND WE LIKED IT!

In my day, we didn't do security. Security wasn't needed. Nothing was 
connected and we restricted people to menus. The menus were limited by 
the application. That's the way it was. AND WE LIKED IT!

In my day, we didn't have networks. Networks just gave us problems 
because everyone could connect. That would cause us to have to do real 
security. And besides the users would get to the data. That's the way it 
was. AND WE LIKED IT!

In my day we didn't have no ILE. We wrote mainlines 2000 lines long. In 
RPGII. With I specs and O specs. We didn't need no DDS or journals or 
referential integrated um triggers or none of that stuff! And we did 
direct printer I/O too. No spooling, that just go in the way! That's the 
way it was. AND WE LIKED IT!

In my day we didn't have WDSc! We had the Programmer Menu and SEU. And 
it edited one line at a time. As it SHOULD BE! We didn't need debuggin 
either, our code was good! We didn't use change management, we compiled 
right into production and wore our sox on our feet!

In my day we didn't have bar codes, or data collection, or uploads, or 
web services. If data was valuable it got keyed so we could edit it! We 
knew it was right because our edits were smarter than the users. That's 
the way it was. AND WE LIKED IT, WE LOVED IT!"

- Larry