Use F16 and page down to turn that off. :-)
Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 409-267-4027
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Steinmetz, Paul
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2014 10:28 AM
To: 'midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: RE: RSE - Remote System Explorer
<Speaking of which, 'Have you tried the modern alternative to SEU? Press F1
for more details.' >
Help text is a bit misleading.
Information about new tools - Details
Client tools are part of the tool set that you already own. It's a
full set of workstation tools for server programmers. It includes
things like Web tools, Java tools, WebFacing, and a modern tool for
traditional RPG/Cobol development called Remote Systems
Explorer(RSE). Give the new tools a try. Once you've taken the time
to get familiar with RSE, you'll find you can be even more
productive than with the old text-based server tools.
Paul
-----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
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