RE: Slashdiot article about P6

RE: XML support.  XML support is tightly coupled to many dbs at this
point.  Several of them (including DB2 for Linux/Unix/Windows) have some
sort of construct that allows you to select data from a table as XML.
MS SQL Server is (of course) the easiest, allowing something like select
foo from bar as xml.

When last I checked (over a year ago now, may be out of date) there was
a strap-on for db2 for i5 that allowed this sort of interaction.  It
cost extra at the time.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of M. Lazarus
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 12:00 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Slashdiot article about P6

Steve,

  Inline:

At 1/7/07 08:36 AM, you wrote:

What about Zend? Would be great if that company bought i5/OS. They
know how to write great software.

Doubtful they are big enough.  But assuming they were to write a new

OS,

what features of i5/OS would you be looking for ?

there are so many. i5/OS has not been improved since the early 1990s.

  Either you are on a *very* old release or you just ignore / don't 
care about the huge improvements that have been made to the system 
since the early 1990's.  Either way, it's a false statement.

add XML support to DB2. Decouple db2 from i5/OS.

  Is XML support an inherent feature of *any* database?  I doubt 
it.  It's an "object or data set" that gets created / processed by an 
application.  RPG has taken a large step toward understanding XML, as 
has Cobol (IIRC) and of course, Java.

  Why would there be ANY advantage to decoupling DB2 from the 
OS?  Close integration is one of its strong points!

Scrap spooled files. replace with XML documents.

  Why?  I think that spooling can be greatly improved is several 
areas, but scrapping what's good for the format du jour won't do it.

expand pointer size so the 16meg limit on spaces and strings can be
eliminated. 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.  You dont need the SLS to
get the features of i5/OS.

  What about the teraspace support doesn't work for you?  I would 
like to see *GT 16 MB support, since objects are becoming larger, but 
it's not a show stopper for me.

by default, journal all files.

  This can be done today on a library by library basis.  It probably 
applies only to SQL created files, but since that's the more "modern" 
way to define your DB, that shouldn't be a problem for you, right?   ;-)

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.

  I agree that signature support needs a lot of improvement, but more 
in the area of parm checking.

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.

  Is this a large issue for you?  Since any pre-compiler you'd create 
would be under your control, there are so many other ways to 
associate additional data to an object.  The only drawback to rolling 
your own would be renaming or moving and object and maybe some 
security issues, but I don't see this as a major sticking point.

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 buy you that is not available to you today?

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.

  IBM does need to recognize that the market dynamics have changed 
(super fast, more reliable low end systems) that may reduce the entry 
level market buying the Series i.  I believe that the complex ROI 
calculations alone that IBM likes to use to sell the box does not 
work anymore.  It needs to be combined with an immediate cost savings 
to the customer.

  -mark