Re: SEU vs. RDi vs. ?

Ah John

You do know how to open a can of worms!

Neither SEU nor RDi is automatically included - they are licensed products that cost something. The price probably won't scare you, in the MF world - it drives us nuts, because some of this was "free" or very inexpensive not too long ago.

SEU if fine for development - it is green screen, not graphical. It is faster in some areas but does not have some of the nice features of a graphical development environment. I use WDSC (earlier name for RDi) all the time, except for really quick and dirty things.

One problem with SEU - it probably won't get much in the way of enhancements. RDi is the forward-looking product, based on Eclipse. If you are doing Java, Eclipse by itself is fully adequate, I think. And for DB work, there are Eclipse plugins like Quantum that can talk to the i database as well as to others.

SEU - depends on the release of the operating system. If you are getting V5R4, the offerings and prices are different from those on V6R1. Here is a link to an article by George Farr (lead for i development tools, IIRC)

http://systeminetwork.com/article/ibm-revitalizes-system-i-app-dev-v6r1

Of course, IBM are changing things all the time. But it gives you a look at the previous offerings and the current ones.

Sometimes I think a person would do well to get V5R4, which has the WDSC client AND SEU as part of WDS (WebSphere Development Studio). Then upgrade to V6R1 and get a few entitlements with the upgrade. Hope I am right on that!!!

Take a look at http://www.ibm.com/software/awdtools/developer/rdi/ for the official site.

HTH
Vern

McKown, John wrote:

Sorry if this is a rehash. I am revising a document that we created a
number of years ago when we looked at converting from the z to Windows
or an iSeries. We did neither, basically because management wanted
Windows and we totally shot the proposal full of holes.
Anyway, one of our questions on the i was about program development. On
the z, we use ISPF, which has a number of utility functions and as best
as I can tell, the editor is similar to SEU. Anyway, the answer from the
vendor was that we should use SEU for program development and that it is
bundled with the iSeries. Is this still a good recommendation? Can SEU
be used effectively for program development, or would you recommend RDi
or something else?
Many thanks.
John McKown
Systems Engineer IV

IT


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