Aaron Bartell wrote:
Just trying to wrap my head around what you've announced. Could Ublu be
categorized as a JVM DSL (Domain Specific Language) for IBM i?
I guess you could call it that. I call it an "object disoriented" language.
The language hides the object complexity of Java from the user, though Ublu actually is a full Java interpreter (see the
calljava command for example).
This is not the first language I coded on top of Java. See FIJI http:/fiji.sourceforge.net
I've been using jt400/jtopen since 1997 or so. If you look in the jtopen source tree there's still some of my
contributed example code under /qc
Anyway, in 2013 I had a customer who needed a lot of work on their mission-critical AS400 environment and I started
writing jtopen-based utils to run on PC/Mac/Linux etc. in Java
I wove the utils together with shell scripts.
Quickly I realized that to do anything useful we had to pass objects from util to util, not just textual results.
The utils became commands in the Ublu language which grew out of that requirement.
Its design is based on what I could accomplish on the fly in the midst of a hurried project.
Later I tidied it up. Somewhat :)
It's not a particularly beautiful language, though it looks, um, "handsome" with jEdit syntax coloring using the
provided jEdit mode.
It works. It's running on customer platforms. It has gaping holes and obvious flaws, but it's useful.
If the members of the i community start to use it, I'll do more work on it, but it's pretty generally complete.
One of the uses is to provide commands for helpdesk folks who cannot be trained on the greenscreen.
With Ublu programs wrappered by shell script launchers autogenerated by Ublu's gensh command, they can be trained to
unstick things that get wedged on the i 7 OS platform.
If you need to remote program/manage/monitor your IBM i platform from another platform, Ublu is worth looking at.
Also, I can consult on this, hint hint .. :)
midrange.com
