RE: MS Vista and iSeries Access support

With the notable exception of OV/400, which was dropped altogether.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of DeLong, Eric
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 9:25 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: MS Vista and iSeries Access support

Steve,

Your statement was "MSFT is really good about maintaining backwards
compatibility"....  This has NEVER been a focus of MS....  With MS, when
they come out with their next generation of development tools, one must
either decide to abandon their current projects and start again in the
new platform, OR they can just stay a a backlevel release and continue
until MS drops support for their version.

Backward compatibility is the traditional hallmark of the IBM midrange.
IBM understood the value of stability to business, and has gone to great
lengths to maintain backward compatibility.  I do think this focus on
backward compatibility has hampered IBMs attempts to get our community
to move towards newer technologies, but that's not IBMs fault...

However, with MS, one is forced to adopt (buy) new technologies every
few years, if one wants to remain current.  MSFT sales are, at this
point, largely driven off product update cycles.  

Eric

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Steve Richter
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 7:10 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: MS Vista and iSeries Access support


On 11/13/06, DeLong, Eric <EDeLong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<Steve said...>
what technical reason could there be that it would not work? MSFT is
really good about maintaining backwards compatibility.
<End>

Really?  That sure doesn't seem to match MY experience with MSFT.....

Have you been drinking Mr. Bill's happy juice again?

If not, then perhaps you can explain what you mean by this....

I can try ... What problems have you had with MSFT software?  My
experience as a programmer is that MSFT is by far the best in terms of
the programability of their products. Linux does not have an exception
handling model, no basic call stack support and knows nothing of
managed code. The end result is a Perl program knows nothing of Java
which cant interact with SQL procedures, PHP, etc. At least no where
to the degree that modern applications need these languages to work
together.  The i5 is a bit better because it has 15 YO ILE but the
grafting on of PASE binaries and SQL procedures has been kludgy at
best. MSFT's .NET is proving itself to be everything the smart people
who created it said it would be.   Programming .NET, esp at the
beginner's level, has never been easier.   They made over $4B in pre
tax profits this past quarter - that tells you a lot of customers like
their products.

-Steve