RE: Moving from Green screen app to GUI because of push back

I know you're not alone. There are other people wanting an RPG/5250 equivalent for GUI directly from IBM. In their defense, IBM did try with VA-RPG and EGL.

I think that's a lost cause at this point, and there's no use crying over spilled milk.



-----Original Message-----
From: mlazarus [mailto:mlazarus@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2017 9:39 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Moving from Green screen app to GUI because of push back

Tim,

I was discussing this subject recently with a very respected member of this group. We were both confused how turning over a crucial, and I do mean crucial to the longevity of the system, piece of creating a modern UI is turned over to third party vendors instead of being fully integrated and included in the OS.

Some vendors have done an admirable job creating a product, but IMHO, it's ridiculous to have to pay a large bundle extra to get what should be included and easily integrated into the system. It is also more expensive to develop using (at least) some of these tools. My estimate is at least 25% longer to develop and test.

I have three clients that are jumping ship to a PC based platform, another that has already gone in that direction (they used to have the largest AS/400 config in the US northeast (which included 14 AS/400's) and another is in the midst of moving part of their operation to a PC based cloud system. I haven't heard of a new member to the midrange fold in a long time. I would imagine that they exist, but I think that
20+ years after the GUI became popular, for IBM not to include this
required functionality, plus the GUI development tools as part of the base OS, is just plain foolish.

No offense to the tool vendors, but I believe that this functionality is best integrated at a low level in the OS, not as a generic API in order to get the best integration, debugging and performance.

-mark