Re: open source IBM i. was Re: From RGP to ¿Java ?

James,

There are quite a few vendors that provide GUI enabling utilities. They all have downsides, including: Cost, effort to integrate, keeping the green screen and GUI code is synch, needing to learn another language (in some cases.)

A GUI is not necessarily stateless. Why can't DDS be event driven? The basic converted functionality can be stateful. VARPG has shown that RPG can do the job. One of the wonderful features of this system is that the major functionality is INTEGRATED.

Us developers would definitely use an integrated, native GUI. Some of the necessary keywords are already in DDS (useable by the almost(?) defunt WSG product.)

One caveat is that it all the components must be a no-charge part of the OS, so software vendors can write to it without concern that their customer base would not have the LPP.

As an aside, I just spoke to a colleague that is going through a similar situation with his clients. With the younger management making decisions, they are looking to move away from their trusty IBM midrange computer and looking at something snazzier. It's a losing battle! Even the traditional Midrange Faithful are deserting. This hasn't happened in such large numbers until the last few years.

If we use a third party product, we much pass along the costs of that product to the customer. That tends to make our product price uncompetitive. So, even though we might be in the running with a shiny GUI, we then lose on the price.

I hope that IBM wakes up before it's too late and realizes that an integrated GUI is now a core requirement, not a fancy add-on.

-mark


At 5/10/09 01:44 PM, you wrote:

I have not been on a sales call, but most ERP vendors these days do offer a
GUI. It's usually just ran through something like Seagull and in general I
don't usually like them, but it's there.

There are several GUI options. You can write a nice GUI in .NET, JavaSever
Faces/Pages, Swing, or even CGI.

Well, they (IBM) had VisualAge RPG which not many people seemed to adopt
(before my time so I don't really know why). They have HATS and WebFacing,
not really a great option but it's there. Now there is EGL.

The main problem as I see it is that most vendors don't usually want
re-write all their displays. That's what really needs to happen. I don't see
any feasable way to convert DDS to some fancy GUI. A native GUI needs to be
event driven which DDS and usally the controlling RPG are not. When someone
presses F3 you can't just lock the screen up and do what you would in RPG.

So, you would have to re-create all your DDS and display controlling
programs anyway. Why does that have to be native? Why would it not make just
has much if not more sense to use an already created and proven technology?

--
James R. Perkins


On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 21:04, M. Lazarus <mlazarus@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

> James,
>
> At 5/8/09 01:06 PM, you wrote:
> >I personally don't think that RPG needs a nice GUI like others do.
>
> Why do you say this? Have you gone on a sales call where your
> competition has the GUI and you don't? I have and it's not
> pretty. The non-GUI software barely has a chance. That's just the
> reality for most decision makers. They want brand new software that
> looks and feels brand new.
>
>
> >In the past IBM has tried to give us this and very few people did
> >anything with it, so they gave up and how can blame them.
>
> Did anyone find out WHY it failed? Was it too expensive? Too
> difficult to implement? To resource hungry? Too limited in functionality?
>
> I'm betting that it was one or more of the above reasons. That
> does NOT mean that we don't want / need a native GUI to make us
> competitive. The same way that IBM woke up and included TCP/IP as an
> integral part of i5/OS or risk losing the entire midrange business,
> they need to recognize that an integrated, native GUI is crucial to
> remaining viable.
>
> -mark