Re: Looking for like-minded programmers who use the enhanced features of 5250

This I totally agree with excepting at one point:  There is a schism in the programming community.  Two very strong and large camps: one is the group of programmers, like you, who are comfortable with all the new stuff, and I am in full support of that; may I say, even a tad bit jealous of how easy it is for you guys.

However there is the other camp , also very large, of programmers in shops that are green screen and going to remain in green screen; shops that are stuck at V5R4, shops that are in the 8th year of their 90-day transition to a "modern" solution, shops where the staff is sharply divided between The Ancients and The Young Un's. These shops, for whatever reason, are staying with 5250 and, by default, still programming like it's 1992.

In my opinion there is a significant niche for providing 5250 applications that are 21st Century.  That seems to me to be a space that is being ignored.  No question that it's not a huge niche. Still, I believe it is a significant niche.




On 6/23/2018 3:36 PM, Jon Paris wrote:

Yes they are unused to F-keys - yes they use mice.

But NO - we should not do more with 5250s - we should try our best to forget them and get better web and mobile apps going.

Sorry Booth - but no matter how many scroll bars or whatever you add to a 5250 it is still 5250 and way worse than the worst efforts of screen scrapers.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On Jun 23, 2018, at 8:54 PM, Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I would like to compare notes with other programmers who use, or want to use, the enhanced 5250 features like scroll bars, push buttons, radio buttons, check boxes, and MOUBTN().

The user-base today is unused to F-keys. They are used to mouse clicks and the mouse wheel. Isn't it time we acknowledged this in our green screen applications? Shouldn't turning the mouse wheel scroll a sub file? Shouldn't a mouse click open a drop down box of available & valid choices?

I am not particularly interested in lectures on the purity of the 1980s and F-keys and why it is important to teach users that F21 is shift-F-something and that the only way to close a program is with F-3. Except sometimes when we use F-12.


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