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I should know better but this append is such complete rubbish I can't help myself. It's not that I expect Steve Richter to change his views but rather that someone else might believe the tripe he spouts.
On 08/01/2007, at 12:36 AM, Steve Richter wrote:
there are so many. i5/OS has not been improved since the early 1990s.
Have you been in a coma since then? You're saying there have been no improvements for over 15 years? That's stupid! Let's see:
midrange.com
1992 OS/400 VRM220 announced:
- Save/Restore while active
- DB expanded space, key size, and access path size
o PF increased from 2GB to 248GB
o Records increased from 16 million to ~2 billion
o Access path size from 1GB to 4GB
o Key size from 120 bytes to 2000 bytes
- Improved printer throughput
- UIM
- New ASP support
- Performance analysis improvements
- APPN connectivity enhancements
- AFPDS improvements
- API access to system objects and information
- Improved DBCS support
- WSCST support
- Increased communications bandwith
1993 OS/400 VRM230 announced:
- Expert cache
- Host Print Transform ASCII printer support
- Improved save/restore performance
- CRDA level-2
- Frame relay support
- SNA enhancements
- Spooled file API enhancements
- Ability to share printer devices between direct and spooled printing
- Apple Mac attachment support
1994 OS/400 VRM310 announced:
- SQL compliance
- Referential integrity
- Stored procedures
- Triggers
- Two-phase commit (Distributed Unit of Work)
- System-wide catalogue tables
- Security levels 50 (and C2 compliance)
- Multi-level concurrency control (transaction isolation)
- NLS support for database
- Advanced SQL optimizer
- Block INSERT and FETCH
- Parallel data access for queries
- Query governor
- Support for DRDA, ODBC, DAL
- Connectivity over TCP, APPC, APPN
- Support for stream files and directories (root, and QOpenSys)
- LanServer/400 (QLANServ)
- POSIX, Spec 1170, BSD Sockets, X/Open API support
- Thread support via CPA Toolkit
- DCE Base Services
- TCP/IP support including FTP, Telnet, SMTP, Sockets, SNMP
- AnyNet support (TCP over SNA, SNA over TCP)
- APPC enhancements
- CPI-C enhancements
- DLOs in user ASPs, RSTDLO to different ASP
- Parallel processing during IPL database recovery
- System Managed Access Path Protection
- Improved problem determination
- PTF enhancements
- AFP enhancements to DDS
- Remote output queue support (over TCP or SNA)
- Spooled file management enhancements
- NLS support via APIS (iconv, etc.). More NLVs, code pages, and
keyboard types
- UCS-2 support (level 1)
- Control over restoring system-state programs
- Additional hardware storage protection
- Public key encryption support
- ILE CL, COBOL, and RPG.
- DDS enhancements
- DBCS enhancements (and Grid Line support)\ - BookManager Read for
OS/400
- Huge number of APIs added
1995 OS/400 VRM360 (Same as VRM310 plus) announced:
- Power PC Technology
- New printer support
- AFPDS enhamncements
- More Spec 1170 APIs (Message queues, shared memory, semaphores,
environment variables)
- Enhanced CPA Toolkit (thread improvements)
- DB2 enhancements (SQL CLI, Alter Table, Outer Join, SQL Client
Integration API, VARGRAPHIC, Remote DTAQ and DTAARA support)
- SNMP APIs
- CD-ROM support
- IPX/SPX communications support
- More Spec 1170 APIs( signals, process, spawn and wait)
- MIB support
- SOM Objects
- Thread support of IFS I/O and local sockets
- TCP enhancements (HTTP server, WSG, SLIP, Anonymous FTP)
- Stream file access to user space objects in QSYS.LIB
- More NLS APIs
- Object Connect (SAVRSTLIB, SAVRSTOBJ, etc.)
- Enhanced printer support
- HPT enhanced for AFPDS and SCS with Barcode and images (TIFF output)
- ASP and mirroring enahancments
1996 OS/400 VRM320 announced:
- TCP and FTP enhancements (POP3 and MIME, exit points)
- APPN security enhancements
- Security tools
- DB2 Multisystem
- Y2K support
1996 OS/400 VRM370 announced:
- Performance improvements (compiles, journalled files, commitment
control, TCP and APPC, save/restore)
- Large file network support (26,200 related physical and logical
files)
- Mirroring enhancements
- Support for NFS
- Concurrent Multiple SAVDLO/RSTDLO operations
- More printing enhancements
- Seamless OPM and ILE debug (plus watch points)
1997 OS/400 VRM410 announced:
- HTTP Server enhancements (multiple instances, user authentication,
browser-based configuration)
- Net.Data enhancements
- TCP routing support
- Database parallelism
- UCS-2 enhancements
- IPL improvements
- PTF improvements
- Save While Active improvements
- Concurrent save operations
- APPC error recovery improvements
- ALT IPL improvements
- DUPTAP enhancements
1998 OC/400 VRM420 announced:
- Java Developer Kit
- AS/400 Toolbox for Java
- TCP enhancements
o DNS server
o DHCP server
o RIP2
o PPP and ISDN dial
o More Telnet ehancements
o Socks proxy
o TCP multicast
- Digital Certificate support
- DRDA Remote Unit of Work for TCP
- Pass file descriptors between processes
- More improvements in IPL recovery
- Improved save commands
- Multiple concurrent restore operations
- Remote journalling
- SQL CLI enhancements
- SQL enhancements
- Column level security
- New query optimiser
- Printing enhancements
- Postscript transforms
- Image transforms
- Kernel thread support
- Thread safety for C/C++
- PTF co-requisite enhancements
- OpsNav enhancements
- Netserver
- ATM LAN
- High Performance Routing for APPN
- Date/Time/Timestamp support in Display and Printer files
- Four digit year support in DDS
- CHGPF, CPYF, ALTER enhancements
- NLS extensions
- Sun Remote Procedure Call support
1998 OS/400 VRM430 announced:
Must have been some stuff but I can't find the announcement letter
1999 OS/400 VRM440 announced:
- More Java (SSL package, SQLJ, multiple versions of JDK, security,
performance, 400 resources)
- VPN support
- LPAR
- Clustering
- Object relational support (Large objects, datalinks, user-defined
types, user-defined functions)
- Management Central
- TCP performance
- SMTP enhancements
- More HTTP Server enhancements (security, performance, LDAP)
- SSL support for HTTP, LDAP, Telnet, management Central, DDM and
DRDA, Client Access servers, Ops Navigator
- Net.Data enhancements
- Threadsafe functions and facilities
- Stream files size up to 256GB
- 64-bit Unix APIs
- Teraspace support
- UCS support in C
2000 OS/400 VRM450 announced:
- PASE
- More LPAR
- More Java Developer Kit
- More Toolbox for Java
- More HTTP Server
- Async I/O Port
- LDAP V3
- DB2 (new SQL functions and procedure language)
- SNMP Print Driver support
- Transport Layer Security support
- Standardised DRDA encryption
- TCP enhancements
- Database journalling (limits increased)
2001 OS/400 VRM510 announced:
- Linux in LPAR
- LPAR (shared processors, dynamic resource movement)
- OpsNav and Management Central enhancements
- XML Extenders (parsers, parser interfaces, XSL Processor)
- Cluster resource services
- HA Switchable Resources
- PASE 64-bit support
- HTTP server enhancements (performance, security, availability,
Apache)
- Object signing
- TCP (Dynamic DNS, Network Quality Of Service support, security
enhancements)
- Database
o Read triggers
o SQL triggers
o SQL functions
o RIGHT OUTER and RIGHT EXCEPTION joins
o Large object size increased from 15MB to 2GB
o Table size increased to 1TB
o SQL performance improvements
- Java (toolbox and developer kit functional and performance
enhancements)
- Directory Services
- Printing enhancements (Internet Printing Protocol and other stuff)
- Digital Certificate Manager enhancements
- Increased password size
- IFS enhancements
o Journal stream files and directories
o iASP support for UDFS
o Text file I/O supports CCSID conversion
o Support for Pipes, FIFOs, and dev/null
o Stream I/O to save files
o Teraspace support on APIs
o Memory mapped files
o Signed stream files
- Netserver enhancements
- ILE C/C++ and teraspace enhancements
- C/C++ and Java performance improvements
- Spooled file enhancements (more per job, easy locate, monitor
writers, performance)
- Increased limits (480,000 jobs, 999,999 spooled files per job,
240,000 user profiles, 5 million private authorities per profile--try
THAT on your beloved p5)
- International Components for Unicode
2002 OS/400 VRM520 announced:
- AIX in LPAR
- Dynamic LPAR for Linux
- More graphical management tools
- Switched-disk clustering
- Enterprise Identity Mapping support
- More HTTP Server improvements
- IPv6 part 1
- Secure Sockets Accelerator
- Wireless device support
- Java Toolbox for Micro Edition
- iASP support for DB2
- CL enhancements
- Security enhancements
o Kerberos
o Digital Signatures
o Java security standards
o Firewall support in VPN
o Cryptographic Accelerators
- Grid computing support
- JDBC 3.0
- XA Specification
- Java Transaction API
- ODBC and JDBC for Linux
- User-Defined Table functions
- Save points
- Common catalogue views
- SQL enhancements( UNION in views, IDENTITY and ROWID, CREATE TABLE
AS, SQL source debug, ISO and ANSI standards).
- IFS directory TYPE 2
- Java Mail
- PASE supports AIX 5L
- PPPoE support
2004 i5/OS VRM530 announced:
- More Linux support (bigger virtual disks, OpsNav integration)
- More Windows support (bigger virtual disks, EIM)
- NAS support enhancements
- OpsNav enhancements
- LDAP enhancements
- SNTP server
- EIM enhancements
- IFS controls
- Updated HTTP Server
- DB2 enhancements
o UTF-8 and UTF-16 support
o SEQUENCE object support
o EXCEPT/INTERSECT set operators
o BINARY/VARBINARY data types
o Improved SQL error handling
o Field level encryption
o Materialised Query Tables
o More ISO and ANSI SQL stuff
o Performance improvements (parallel concurrent reorganise, star
join, delete, call, etc.)
o File size increased to 1.7TB
o Partitioned tables
o Increased decimal precision
o 256 members in a view
- Printing enhancements (Unicode, TruType and OpenType fonts, ASCII
and AFP enhancements)
- Save while active enhancements
- IFS save/restore enhancements
2006 i5/OS VRM540 announced:
- SQL enhancements (RANK and DENSERANK, ROWNUMBER, INTERSECT/EXPECT
predicates, Scalar FullSelect, Recursive CTE)
- Virtualisation Engine Enhancements
- Save/restore spooled files
- Performance tools enhancements
- TCP intrusion detection
- Hardware storage protection enhancements
- DCM enhancements
- Cryptographic enhancements
- IPv6 part 2
- Replacement for AnyNet
- VPN enhancements
- Virtual IP
- Parallel save for IFS
- SAVSYS enhancements
- New 32-bit JVM
- Java toolbox updates (new resource classes, increased JDBC limits)
- CL enhancements
- Spooled file enhancements, call stack enhancements, threads for
subsystems
- SOAP APIs
- HTTP Server updates
And this is only the big ticket stuff. In addition, each release has
supported additional hardware and software, compiler enhancements, plus
new OS/400 commands, system values, and job attributes. "Not been
improved since the early 1990s"? Don't think so! Just more proof you're
talking rubbish.
long object and field names
There has been discussion on this list previously about the difficulties involved in doing this for native objects. It will cost a LOT of money to rectify for almost no gain. Only programmers care about the object name limitations; end-users and managers (i.e., those who make the business decision to buy the system) don't give a toss. No return on the investment so IBM are unlikely to do this.
You can get long name support for files and fields by using SQL. 128 characters should be long enough for you.
libraries can contain libraries. basically go the directory organizing route, but retain the library list over the search path.
This has been requested for a very long time--prior to Document Library Support on S/38--and it hasn't been done. That suggests one of two things:
1) No-one requires it so it hasn't been done
2) There are fundamental dependencies on the existing behaviour so it
hasn't been done.
I suspect part of the problem is that some object types can only exist in the machine context. Libraries are one of these objects.
I can see immediate problems with defining nested libraries in the library list, problems providing backwards compatibility with existing code, etc. While this could be done it would be expensive and, again, only programmers care about this. No return on the investment so IBM are unlikely to do this.
You seem to want IBM to spend money on development efforts that will make you happy but no-one in a position to influence the purchase process gives a flying f__k about.
add XML support to DB2.
Isn't that what DB2 Extender is all about?
Decouple db2 from i5/OS.
Why? What is the business case? The tight integration is one of its strengths. Although DB2 appears part of the system that's really a conceptual thing. Our system IS a database machine because the machine itself understands the relational database. It never had a name and most customers didn't know they were using one so IBM named it DB2/400 at VRM310 as a marketing awareness exercise.
What most people (incorrectly) consider the database is the SQL support. That is already decoupled because it is a separate licensed product.
Just 'cause you want to run Oracle or MySQL on the box doesn't indicate demand from other sources. If Oracle want to port their DB to i5 they could do it (with or without IBM's help). Wouldn't be much point though because DB2 craps all over Oracle in terms of less administration and increased limits.
If you want MySQL or some other kiddie database then port it yourself.
Scrap spooled files. replace with XML documents.
Two completely different things: Spooled files are printer-ready data streams, XML documents are just text with tags. That'll look nice on a printout. No printer currently transforms XML into a formatted report so how would these XML documents be printed? By processing them in a program that generates a printer-ready data stream. Hmm, isn't that where we came in?
Maybe you want to use DDS to generate XML instead of a printer file? Why, it's very easy for a programmer to generate XML, quite a bit harder for the same programmer to generate a printer-ready data stream (level of difficulty depends on the target printer). Why require IBM to expend development dollars on something easily within the capabilities of all current programmers?
As far as I know, no other OS generates XML for printing or uses XML to store database records. Why? Because there are no proper standards for such a thing. So which dialect of XML should be adopted to describe printed output?
expand pointer size so the 16meg limit on spaces and strings can be eliminated.
Need more than 16MB? Use teraspace. IBM have provided a solution to the size limit, all you have to do is use it. Besides, it's not the pointer size that imposes the limit but rather the segment-based addressing mechanism which has nothing to do with SLS but rather is a side-effect of the object-based design.
or scrap/redo the single level store architecture. Possibly, limitations and security problems of the SLS is what is preventing IBM from investing in our system.
Where do you get that idea? Smacks of 2+2=5 (which can be true for sufficiently high values of 2 but otherwise is patently false).
You dont need the SLS to get the features of i5/OS.
SLS is one of the fundamental architectural principles of i5/OS. Bit hard to remove that and still say it's i5/OS (or OS/400). Next you'll want to remove object based design and technology independence. You need to do some research on exactly what SLS is and isn't because I think this is yet another thing you don't understand.
by default, journal all files.
Why? Most customers still don't care about journalling. Why not? Because the system is too reliable. It hardly ever crashes and when it does it does a very good job of recovering. Oh, i5/OS should do this because all other databases require journalling. Is that your argument? They require it because they're not as reliable. See the circular argument here?
If you use SQL to define your database (and you would because you would be using modern development methods) then you can have the system automatically journal all files in a COLLECTION and have the journals managed by the system.
Better to leave journalling as a customer choice rather than forcing it. Thus IBM and i5 provide the customer with more flexibility.
better support for multiple signatures in service programs. Previous signatures should auto map the export number of srvpgm exports from what they were when the signature was current to what they are in the current signature.
Why? That would stop me from renaming an old function and still have it continue to work with programs using an older signature. Your approach would force me to use new names for any replacement function instead of renaming the OLD function. The new function would also have to distinguish between being called the old way and the new way.
What IBM have given us with signatures is better than your suggestion. The only thing missing is procedure signatures which would give us procedure overloading and probably satisfy what you're asking for.
Maybe you don't really understand how service program signatures work? Check the archives--signatures have been fully discussed previously.
ability to create associated spaces of an object. did you know a srcmbr can have an associated space? could use the associated space of a srcmbr to store meta data such as extended member text, or info used by a precompiler.
Open a DCR and request this feature. IBM have provided APIs for working with an associated space of a program object. If you can place a business case for doing the same with other objects they'll probably do it.
It might be nice to use an associated space for the purpose you describe above, and there are distinct advantages to so doing, but it's not necessary. You can achieve the same result via different means.
a garbage collection memory model that holds objects. this means you need a facility for defining and storing object types. ( you need a reflection type facility for calling the dispose method of the object. ) One use of something like this would be system APIs would return objects that are typed, that are self describing. In the case of a list objects API, the system would return an object that is holds an indexed array with the capacity to list all the objects on the system.
What would this achieve over the existing list APIs? I can see possible benefits in a different programming approach but this really adds no commercial value. Again, this would cost LOTS of money to do and have limited return to IBM. If you see otherwise then write the business case. Show us and IBM how this would increase sales, revenue, and profit from i5. That means explaining why those with purchasing power would buy the system--not why programmers looking for a cheap or free development system would be interested. They've got no money and no power so they're not important.
etc, etc. most important, if the system was able to run at p5 speeds and prices, 3rd parties could provide a lot of what is needed to improve the OS and language support.
This drivel again. The big block to 3rd-parties providing extensions to OS and compiler languages is the restricted access to the guts of the system. However, in most cases that's not necessary. There are plenty of garbage collection based, scripting languages that can run like a rocket on this system and they don't need access to system internals to do it. Lua is one of them, Ruby is another. Don't need so-called p5 speeds to run them either.
ILE gives you the tools to extend the current programming languages. Garbage collection is not required for that but you could build such a thing if you wanted.
The OS can be extended with user-defined commands and processing programs.
Many system objects are just variations of space objects and index objects. You could build your own object types from user space and user index objects. Sure, you wouldn't be able to define an external object type for them but you could accomplish your goal.
So if you want to improve the OS you have suitable tools--maybe not the ones you'd like but perfectly acceptable and usable. Instead of whinging about what IBM are failing to do technically why don't you create the stuff you consider missing and make it available?
I've seen some of your code. It suggests you're a good programmer but your comments regarding IBM's development and suggestions for what must be done to improve i5/OS just make you seem a fool. Give us a proper business case, with numbers, to show otherwise.
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