Re: Idle curiosity about EGL Cafe ...

Joe Pluta wrote:

A forum is a web application, but not a business application. The primary focus is the front end, it's more about presentation of
textual data, and the business rules are almost trivial... simple
enough to be written in languages like Perl and PHP. Yeah, they'd be
sizzle-y, I suppose, but in the end they wouldn't prove much.

I guess we'll have to disagree on this ... I consider a forum system as
much a business application as a ERP system.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure Jive software wrote the forum system in Java.

Exactly. Right tool for the right job.

In the case of midrange.com it wasn't a case of "the right tool for the
right job" it was a case of "the available tool for the job".

If I had the time and resources, I would *LOVE* to write a list
processor the i. I would write the front end and receiver & sender in
java, and the actual list processing in RPG. I've envisioned how it
would work for many years.

Forums are commodity software, nothing is to be learned by
re-inventing that particular wheel.

Sure there is ... a better way to implement it. Wheels are made to be
re-invented. This is called PROGRESS. If wheels hadn't been
re-invented, then my Escape Hybrid would be running granite tires. :)

Besides, unless they did one that's better than everything out there,
there is a certain segment of the community that would spend all
their time saying things like "it doesn't have feature X that phpbb
has".

That happens no matter what. Hasn't stopped people from building better
wheels. Sure didn't stop Jive software from developing their forum system.

I have to disagree. Having EGL run a forum would appeal to you and
I, but not to people who actually but enterprise software. I'd wager
that a forum ranks very low on the list of applications most C-level
executives want their programmers to work on.

Maybe so ... but, at least IMO, part of validating a product is for the
originating company to use that product. MKS uses Implementer to
develop Implementer and MKS Source to develop MKS Source. I'm sure
Hawkeye uses Pathfinder to cross reference the Pathfinder product. I'm
fairly certain that SSA (when it was still SSA) used BPCS for their
accounting system.

If IBM were to use EGL to develop the EGL Cafe, it would be showing how
flexible and and what good applications that EGL can produce.

Personally, I'd much rather that IBM do exactly what it is doing:
spend their resources using EGL to integrate technologies and use
those to build real applications.

A business application is just an application that a business uses. If
a companies business is forums, then a forum application is a business
application. No less real than an ERP system.

Even the simple scheduler that Chris and I wrote has more business
logic in it than most forum software, and that's where I want IBM to
focus.

Well, I haven't had a chance to look at the scheduling software you
wrote ... but I would venture to say that most forum systems have a LOT
more 'business' logic in them.

Lesse ...

1. Authentication
2. Storage
3. Reply processing
4. Thread management
5. Notification
6. Rendering

None of these are trivial ... all of them related to the business of
managing a forum. Forums are becoming more and more important to
businesses.

If things continue to proceed, you'll be hearing about far more important uses for EGL in the very near future, and it won't be
hosting blogs.

Maybe it should be.

david