Re: what was the single mgmt decision made in mid-1990s. period

Nathan,

At 2/18/09 02:49 PM, you wrote:

> From: M. Lazarus
> 1) Cheaper development costs.

IBM may not openly debate that, but they are promoting RDI-SOA as an alternative to a native GUI. They expressly position it as a programmer productivity tool. What you're asking for would compete against their own product - disrupt their own ecosystem.

That's part of the problem. They are charging for something that should be included, in order to promote the system. I do realize that there are development costs to create these tools. Based on my observations talking to customers, prospective customers and colleagues in IT, this decision is costing them far more than they are making. When it comes time to make a decision to spend money, anyone that can afford to jump to other, cheaper, prettier platforms are attempting to do that.

IBM should find a way to make up the revenue in other areas and, of course, in increased sales.

> 2) We can claim that "it's in there"

When I consider the breadth and scope of Web technologies that exist, I have a hard time understanding what "it's in there" means. Just consider the AJAX frameworks, alone.

OK, so I oversimplified the process. The "it's in there" comment means that there would a simple hook (similar to the EXFMT opcode) to generate and read the HTML page. Or maybe even make CGIDEV2 an official supported extension.

> 3) We don't have extra 3rd party layers to deal with for a necessary,
> very integrated function.

Again, when you're dealing with distributed, client-server technology like Web interfaces, you really can't characterize them as "integrated" with the server - at least not at the same level as the 5250 interface.

My reference to "integrated" refers to the ability to RPG's integrated I/O. As I previously mentioned, there are definitely considerations that are different when implementing a browser I/O data stream vs. a 5250 data stream. But I would like to have something along those lines.

> The overall benefit is that the people promoting the system in the
> field would be able to sell it without the usual "isn't this that
> really old system?

Sorry, but I have more disconnect there. IBM already provides HATS and Webfacing, as a mask over 5250. Are you suggesting that they rewrite every native command as a new Web application?

My main concern is user applications, not the system menus. HATS would probably work well enough for the system menus. My users rarely see a system menu, so it's a low priority for me.

-mark