Re: porting C library to Power i

On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 1:22 PM, Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I think there is one big difference John. With PHP Zend have already built and included many of the add on components that are needed into the IBM i base. With Python you seem to always have to get hold of those "extra" things and install them yourself. I have started using Python, but have been slowed down by encountering similar dependencies to the ones Paul has encountered. That has never yet happened to me with PHP.

I agree that IBM, if they're serious about (pick whatever technology),
should be providing more of the libraries which do not have an
automated installation process on the i, or partnering with someone
who can. In the case of most dynamic languages, that means stuff that
is compiled to native machine code rather than to the dynamic
language's runtime.

So yes, PHP does have a leg up on the i because Zend did a lot of the
work. But it's also not free. I keep forgetting that part, because the
PHP language itself is, ostensibly, open source and free.

There are relatively few "linchpin" Python libraries that must be
compiled to native code, but these are dependencies for huge numbers
of other libraries (which I believe contributes to the sense on the i
that Python is always missing something). In particular, IBM really
should bite the bullet and build NumPy for PASE already. That would
open up a ton of Python applications, some of which I doubt PHP has
any near equivalent. Another major area that needs native code is
encryption/security/SSL/SSH. It's tough to talk to the Web these days
without secure connections (understandably so). I'm not sure how many
C libraries that involves, but it can't be more than a handful, and
again, that would open up a ton of applications.

As a small aside, iSeriesPython does come with an ILE-compiled crypto
package, which means out of the box it can use some libraries that
IBM's Python for PASE can't.

John Y.