RE: RSE - Remote System Explorer

Remember that the first version of WDSC was only available on OS/2.
IBM's version of the Edsel.

Trevor Briggs
Analyst/Programmer
Lincare, Inc.
(727) 431-1246
TBriggs2@xxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Buck Calabro
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2014 11:10 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: RSE - Remote System Explorer

On 8/6/2014 11:29 PM, John Yeung wrote:

Midrange programmers didn't adopt the GUI IDE even when
it was bundled with the compilers.

While this is often used as evidence of low demand (and as
justification for the extra charge for RDi), I find any conclusions
derived from this particular fact kind of suspect. (1) The IDE at
that time was pretty crappy, judging by what I've read.

I can't comment on what you've read, but as one who actually used
Code/400, WDSC, RDP and RDi I can state with some authority that at no
point was the IDE crappier than SEU.

It was either not easy to use,

I'm going to answer these one by one, as they do seem to represent
things that 'everybody knows' about the IDE.

Ease of use was approximately the same as it is today.

or it was too slow on the PCs most folks had back then.

The 'too slow' complaints were most often from people who tried to start
WDSC, edit one member, compile one member and then close it down. Once
the IDE was running, typing was just as fast as SEU, and the ability to
cut and paste normally made editing simpler and faster than MM...MM A.

(2) It was definitely not promoted well enough. I mean, think
of how few people know the proper naming for the midrange platform
itself. I'd guess far fewer even know that a GUI IDE exists, let
alone what it's called. (And Jon Paris amply demonstrated that the
naming of the IDE underwent changes comparable to the naming of the
midrange platform.)

I don't know what that means. Seriously. All of us reading this list
bought a midrange machine - a machine that we probably didn't buy
because of an ad campaign. Virtually all of us program in RPG, a
language that we mostly learnt on the job, not as a result of a push by
university CS departments via IBM subsidy. The stack of tapes, then
CDs, then DVD that IBM sent to us have always been cryptically labelled,
and yet we managed to install it all one way or another. All except
WDSC. Why? I don't think it's a marketing problem as much as a
consumer demand problem. We like SEU, we really like it!

It's my opinion (and worth every penny you paid for it) that

management

declines to spend the money on RDi because the demand is very weak.

If

the entire staff walked into the boss' office and said that they need
RDi, I think management would be much more likely to cut the check.

I don't disagree with any of that, but my (equally valuable) opinion
is that now would be a good time for IBM/Rational to revisit both
pricing and promotion for RDi. People these days have more powerful
PCs, the underlying Eclipse engine has (from what I gather) also
improved during these intervening years, and Java itself (which runs
Eclipse) has also improved. So it's probably much easier for RDi to
make a case for itself today than WDSC did back when it was bundled at
no extra cost. But people have to know it exists first.

When I say pricing should be revisited, what I mean is that IBM should
seriously consider bundling RDi with the compilers, and charge more
for the compilers.

It seems a chicken and egg situation to me. If the majority of midrange
developers were less satisfied with SEU they'd be actively looking for
alternatives. Speaking of which, 'Have you tried the modern alternative
to SEU? Press F1 for more details.' :-)

--buck