Re: No giving up on System i (was: I'm about to give up)

Mark,

First, why are you taking this personally? You complain that it is IBM'S
fault, I point out reasons why not, and you get defensive and provide a
battery of poor-me-I-can't-do-it excuses. This is why our industry is
getting nowhere - we are willing to blame IBM, but not DO anything about the
situation.

Second, the reason why you don't have 40 hours to devote to this project is
that the business for which you are working has not deemed it a priority in
their IT budget. Their priority is, apparently, spending your time on
forever fixing things. If you watch how IT works, if you only spend time and
effort on maintenance, then you will only ever spend time and money on
maintenance.

And, many of us in this industry are faced with that prospect in our jobs -
every day. And like you, they are not calling the shots. But, instead of
using that as a means to do NOTHING, and justify the whining, why don't you
DO something about it?

Let me suggest some ideas. And no, these are not personally aimed at you.

1. Stop whining about GUI on public forums. That debate is over, and the
more we complain about "no native GUI", the more our credibility suffers.

2. Start researching - find the time to at least educate ourselves about the
problem and its resolution. You will find that the System i is more than a
renamed AS/400.

3. Sell the System i to your business as a modern and GUI-enabled tool. Brag
about what it CAN do, and stop arguing that it canNOT do things that it can.
Thank the company for providing you with the best server and OS on the
planet.

4. Find the time inside your maintenance schedule to GUIfy something simple
on a System i. Use that as a way to market to the users that it is a modern
server and OS.

5. Determine the business benefits of modernizing applications to GUI. Sell
that to the business OWNERS, and have them invest in IT to perform this.

6. Ignore the "boss" who tells you to keep using SEU+PDM and risk your job
on becoming more productive at coding - leading to reduced maintenance. If
you lose your job, complain here - or apply to the places that complain here
all the time that there are no resources available.

7. Don't give excuses for continuing to do NOTHING. Collectively, we need to
get off our whiney butts and being proactive. If all we ever do is complain
and blame, we will have no time to do the things we can do that would
prevent the complaining in the first place.

8. Get over your inability to change. Push your comfort zone into a new
world of a System i that is the best business server on the planet.

9. Stop finding blame. It does not help us move forward.

There are dozens of things you can do - make up your own! The world does not
seem to change on the people who talk the loudest, but the people who are
willing to ACT.

Trevor



On 10/7/07 3:59 PM, "Mark Allen" <scprideandms@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

and it's my fault that our vendor won;t do it and I am too busy as a 1 man
shop fixing all the broken stuff, adding the emergency changes cause we are
rapidly changing our business processes, running tons of ad hoc, need it now
queries, fixing the interfaces to other non-system i packages because the
vendor upgraded the package or a new MS release.

I could move it to a GUI a half dozen ways with some of the commercial tools
available but I don't have the extra 40 hrs a week to devote to it. Not
complaining thats just the way of life in a small shop. Will we eventually
move to a GUI interface, yes, will it be on the System i, doubtful, will it
cost big$ and years of conversion, Yes. Do I think its the right direction,
No, but I ain;t calling the shots.

On 10/7/07, Trevor Perry <trevor@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mark,

Blaming IBM continues to be the game-du-jour. This is not the approach
needed to remove the stigma from our greenish hue.

Regardless of anyone's preference, IBM has provided newer interfaces to
the
System i.

1. iSeries Navigator - GUI tool to manage the server.
- people don't use it, because it is not the ~familiar~ green screen. Not
IBM's fault.

2. WDSc - GUI IDE based on (a modern tool) Eclipse
- people don't use it, because it is not the ~familiar~ green screen
PDM+SEU, etc. Not IBM's fault.

3. WAS - Java middleware to deploy web applications.
- people don't use it because it is new and they don't like change. Not
IBM's fault.
- people don't use it because it requires Java. Not IBM's fault - they
provided wizards for you.
- people don't use it because it sucks resources. IBM's fault.

4. HATS, Webfacing, WDHT
- people don't use it because it is new and they don't like change. Not
IBM's fault.
- people don't use it because it is hard to use and requires lots of
maintenance. IBM's fault.
- people create crappy user interfaces with the tools, because they don't
have a graphic designer "design" the interface, thinking they know better.
Not IBM's fault.

5. Third party interfaces/refacing/reengineering.
- vendors don't use them because they won't invest in modernizing their
product, catering for their current "AS/400" clients. Not IBM's fault.
- vendors don't have the resources to invest in modernizing their
interface.
Not IBM's fault.
- vendors don't invest the time in researching their choices. Not IBM's
fault.
- customers are fed a lot of crap from vendors about how wonderful their
"modernization tool" is, and remain hesitant about GUIizing. Not IBM's
fault.

.... and the list, and the blame, goes on...

The bottom line is that the ability to create a better human interface is
available today, and has been available for quite some time. If there is
no
GUI interface for an application, that is NOT IBM's fault. And the
industry
needs to stop whining about it. It is the INDUSTRY's fault that there are
few GUI interfaces to the System i and i5/OS applications.

Trevor