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

I guess I need to understand what you mean by "native". I don't think
something that only runs on Windows or only runs on Linux is a viable
solution these days. I would think that would be up to the developer what OS
to develop the GUI for.

I do understand we are losing people to a "Windows" style look vs. the old
looking green screen. I am relatively young, so I grew up with the Mac
Classic and then Windows. People these days just understand point and click
(at least to a point ;-)). I think when users see a green screen they think
they need to be a "programmer" type to even use or understand it.

I do think that developers now would use a VARPG style UI. This is just a
guess, but I would say that at the time most people that did not adopt just
thought that a UI for a mainframe or midrange system was just a fad. I could
be completely wrong here though. I think we would be a lot further a long
with a nice UI if developers HAD adopted VARPG.

The output of VARPG is Java. Why not just use Java instead of trying to get
VARPG to output Java? I know it's another language to learn, but I think OO
is MUCH better for UI than RPG ever can/should be. I think making RPG to OO
style will break how great it is for back-end business rules.

I agree though that third party products are not the way to go. I don't
think there is any good way to convert what's already done to some nice UI.
It just plain needs to be re-written. I think that's where we need to change
our thought process. We don't need to convert some DDS written in 1989 to
some fancy UI. It just needs to be redeveloped. It would be very expensive
and not really an easy thing to do, but waiting just makes it worse.

--
James R. Perkins


On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 21:18, M. Lazarus <mlazarus@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

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

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