Re: Anybody besides me notice? -- MIDRANGE-L

Joe,

Excellent point.  Unfortunattely that seems to be the reason some within IBM 
feel that can just attach the milking machine to the teats of the System i 
customer base until it sucks dry.
 
Neil Palmer, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
 
(This account not monitored for personal mail,
remove the last two letters before @ for that)


----- Original Message ----
From: Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2006 5:33:54 PM
Subject: RE: Anybody besides me notice?

From: Walden H. Leverich

You forgot "Native GUI" as well...

I don't want to put words into people mouths, but it seems to me that
lots of people like to complain about the competition, or spread fear,
uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about alternate platforms, but when it comes
down to it, the box isn't as stable as it used to be, and the
alternatives are clearly enterprise-capable and have been for many
years.


I've been staying out of this conversation, because it's lots of opinion and
not a lot of fact, and frankly there's enough hot air out there that mine
doesn't need to be added.

But this is one place I'll remain adamant: despite all the hobbledehoy out
there, there still isn't a Windows solution that comes near the stability,
security and scalability of an iSeries.  The stories prove it.  If it were
doable, then we'd hear plenty of stories about successful conversions from
the iSeries to .NET or whatever other desktop OS you want to name.

There are none.  Instead, what we hear is stories like Paul's, where a
conversion from a working iSeries environment to Oracle simply DOES NOT
WORK.

Now, I absolutely believe that a properly architected system could be
written using Apache/Tomcat and some high-performance SQL-only database.
You'd need somebody who understood how to properly get around the
single-record access issues; a standard ORM or EJB approach would fail
miserably, and frankly I don't think there are that many people out there
who still understand the concept of good database programming.  SQL has all
but destroyed the brains of an entire generation of programmers (Dr. Codd is
probably spinning in his grave).  Watch what happens when an SQL question is
asked on the list: trial and error and suggestions and corrections.  Taking
a week to handcraft a single SELECT statement via trial and error simply
isn't programming.  It's mental gymnastics (that's NOT the term I was going
to use at first, but most email filters would have choked at my initial
phrase).

Yes, it could be done.  But I daresay there isn't a single application being
developed today that has anywhere near the efficiency of most decade-old RPG
applications.  And THAT'S why nearly every attempt to move off of the
iSeries, if it gets accomplished at all, costs more, works less, and takes
longer than anybody estimates.

Okay, that's my rant for the day.

Joe

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