On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 2:53 PM Patrik Schindler <poc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello Jack,
can't resist anymore. :-)
Thanks for sharing thoughts!
From what I see, IBM is porting more and more Open Source stuff to PASE.
IBM i seems to strengthen PASE and leave CPF alone. With every new OSS
tool, the chance of exploitable bugs will increase.
Absotively. And since they're mission critical nonetheless, all eyes should
be on them. Apparently yours are, and that's good.
Maybe I'm mostly alone with my opinion but I think one of the greatest
strengths IBM i has *is* the green screen. Imagine a DSPF with a few
fields, a PF for data storage and a tiny (!) RPG program for jumping back
and forth between records. Now try to accomplish the same with Libcurses in
Linux or another UNIX. It's a cumbersome mess. I tried (for hobbyist
purposes) and finally gave up after months of frustration.
Greenscreen stuff is easy if you know it. Ditto doing same in Unix. We
don't use libcurses much anymore for interfaces, we use GUI builder tools
more suited to light scripting, e.g., Tkinter
I just replaced 120-line RPG IV program with a 6-line Python script. So
that "which tool is best" cuts both ways.
My preference is "RPG + SQL for data preparation, Python or Node.js for
shlepping the prepared data off the box into the aether"
Which latter, the shlepping, is more and more of the requirement of modern
computing, and RPG is very cumbersome at that.
I'm working and partly programming with(in) Linux since about 1995 and
saved an 150 from being dumped about 2008, just for curiosity and
satisfying my retrocomputing hobby. I'm still very attached to Linux for
server purposes, but when it comes to create tiny tools which provide
full-screen user interaction, nothing can beat the combination of
PF/DSPF/RPGLE, for the sheer easiness of actually having a functioning
solution ready in a comparable small amount of time.
And it's great fun. Ask Booth Martin. I'm all for it.
The downside is it's a minority approach and you and I are hard to replace
or supplement with new hires.
I read a lot about the urge for modernization in old MCPRESS articles and
other old and newer sources. While having a truly graphical UI may be
beneficial
To me, it's not about UI, it's about using IBM i as a data sink for web
services. Multi tier apps: IBM i microservices -> Linux web server ->
Internet.
If you take away 5250 and CPF from IBM i, what does remain? I think, it'd
be just another UNIX-like server platform with a lot of legacy code to map
the classical UNIX *STMF and memory handling into the single level store.
Nobody aside from our little cozy club cares about that stuff. To the
world, it's just a reliable piece of hardware serving data.
To stay a viable platform, IBM needs to attract young people who maybe
learn to like the platform.
For IBM i to stay viable it has to attract young people, full stop.
"He who would have friends must show himself friendly," says the biblical
proverb.
We adapt, or we go away.
The young can thumb their noses at us with impunity in this job market!
The z-Guys have realized that.
I've worked in z and we're all in the same boat.
It's not about our beautiful systems going on to greater victories.
It's that we're trying to keep things running until everyone is off the
platform(s).
And those of us with emotional stock in the platform, well, the vast
majority of us are within a decade of retirement.
So we don't matter much. Our job is to keep the ship sailing until it docks
from its final voyage.
My intention isn't to offend you or piss you off. Your initial comment
about "modernize or die" was just too tempting to show you that there is
more than just patch browser access to old apps and they'd be ready for the
next 30 years to come. :-)
I'm not offended. I'm not pissed off. I'm rehearsing a presentation for
COMMON PowerUP 2020 called "Modernize or Die".
Because that's the horrid reality of our little niche. We're obsolete, not
because we're wrong, but because the parade went off down another street.
I worked in FORTH
I worked on the Amiga
I worked on OS/2
I voted for Jimmy Carter
And here I am in the twilight of IBM i.
I'm used to being right and still losing the battle!
So I'm still running modernization and transformation projects and working
at making this as accessible to youth as possible.
I hope to keep the blessed IBM i platform going for another decade.
Beyond 10 years from now, it's somebody else's job.
Have the loveliest weekend ever, Patrick!
Jack
midrange.com
