Re: EGL RichUI Was:Re: From RGP to ¿Java?

Our company tried EGL (Not the Rich UI version) and found it wanting. Bigger
problem I saw was the interface to the backend AS/400 code. Required you to
write code for program calls, different for service program, different for
data queues, etc and returning data was a big problem so what I did was
abstract the AS/400 interface away.

By abstract, I mean we wrote a single java class that received the name of a
service program, library, procedure and parameters as text and did a single
send. Results were returned as arrays of text strings that could be fixed,
XML, delimited, whatever.

On the AS/400 side I created standard functions to be used by mediators. One
per type of interface. Results were returned via user space or IFS files are
streams of text.

Since it is just Java on the PC side, we still use it with the new stuff
they are developing to call when they need something special from the AS/400
(Calls to vendor code mostly)..

My point here is if you end up looking at something with an AS/400 backend,
consider abstracting away the interface. I don't think a GUI frontend with
an RPG backend is practical without it.

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 8:23 AM, James Perkins <jrperkinsjr@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Joe,
I haven't yet played with EGL, but it is starting to peak my interest. When
you say RichUI, this is still a web page, it just uses JavaScript to
enhance
the view, correct? Does it account for users that have scripting disabled?

Also, is all EGL design WYSIWYG?

Thanks in advance,
--
James R. Perkins


On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 06:45, Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

By far the fastest and easiest way to create web applications is to use
EGL. I just did a demonstration in Raleigh where I create an entire
multi-tiered application, including both thin-client JSF and rich
client, in under an hour. The application displayed an array of
customers in a grid, and called an RPG program to get the data.

Most of the scripting technologies can get you a "decent" page in thin
client. The trouble comes when you want something modern. If you're
going to go through all the effort of creating a modernized interface,
you need something that uses a framework like jQuery or Dojo. With EGL,
you can create a thin client interface in literally minutes. You can
also expose an EGL function as a web service with a few clicks. The
beauty of the language comes when you want to do rich client. EGL Rich
UI is pretty hard to beat.

You can see some information about it here:

http://www-949.ibm.com/software/rational/cafe/community/egl/rui

IBM Rich UI has a decent set of widgets, but more importantly it's very
easy to extend to use other frameworks. As an example, here's a
dashboard I mocked up in a couple of hours using Dojo:

http://www.plutabrothers.com/PBDWeb/EGL/Dashboard.png

Took about 70 lines of code; I'm writing an article about it for
Search/400.

I can attach this to back end logic and have the entire thing up and
running in a day or two, using a WYSIWYG editor to put the pieces
together. I don't think there's another tool that you can get that will
do this. And the final huge benefit? The tooling used to develop this
little project (RDi-SOA) will also let you maintain and debug the RPG
back end.

Joe

i have a business aplication developed with RPGIV (also using CL, PRT,
PF and DSP) and now I need to modernise the aplication.
If you done the same, please comment your experience.
I've tinked rewrite the application in Java or Python?
What graphic interface?

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