RE: SEU vs. ? -- RPG400-L

Scott,

You saw the thread a while back about VNC on iSeries PASE?  I'm not sure how
"native" this would be, but my understanding is that PASE environment is
managed by OS400.  Still, working in a Unix context within OS400 seems a
little kludgy, and might not be as useful as it first seems.  Anyway, VNC
has clients for almost everybody.....

The consensus was that unless IBM makes X11 or VNC a standard interface on
iSeries, that nobody would use it.  

Eric DeLong
Sally Beauty Company
MIS-Project Manager (BSG)
940-898-7863 or ext. 1863



-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Klement [mailto:klemscot@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 3:54 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: RE: SEU vs. ?


>
> But, even your FreeBSD uses a strap-on third party piece of software to
> provide a GUI. As stated in their handbook:  "FreeBSD uses XFree86 to
> provide users with a powerful graphical user interface."
>

That's true, but I don't see what it has to do with this thread?

My objection isn't because Windows was written by someone other than IBM.
My objection is that I can't really use WDSC or CODE because I have to
reboot my computer into Windows every time I want to edit a source member.

Believe it or not, I use my PC for other things besides purely being a
front-end to OS/400.   I can't discard FreeBSD in favor of Windows,
because I need FreeBSD to do my job.  I could, by doing a lot of work,
conversion, migration, etc, convert everything to be Windows-based instead
of FreeBSD-based...   but since I don't like Windows, that's not likely to
happen.

>
> If I remember correctly most (if not all) flavors of Unix and Linux use
> separate 'software' to provide the GUI. OS/400 is really no different.
> Maybe you can convince the developers to port XFree86 to run on OS/400.
;-)
>

I like the idea of using XFree86 or some other brand of X11 on the
iSeries... I always have.   The only problem is that, this way, it's the
Windows users who get left out.

My point is that OS/400 shouldn't require another computer with another
(specific) operating system.   If they wrote the thing in C using GTK as a
front-end (for example) they'd be able to compile and run it on Windows,
Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS X, and any major flavor of Unix.

If they wrote it in pure Java, as another example, they'd be able to run
it everywhere that there's a JVM.  Of course, they'd have to deal with the
horrible performance penalty that Java gives you, but I could probably
live with that.

If they wrote it to run natively on the iSeries, and used an X11 scenario
to connect & run the GUI, then I'd also be happy.

With an X11 server on the iSeries, Linux users and Unix users would
natively be able to work with the applications.   Windows users would have
to get 3rd-party software called an "Xserver", but there are many of them
already available, including open source alternatives.    This would also
give you the added benefits of being able to write GUI programs that ran
natively on your iSeries instead of the client/server hacks that people
are doing today.

At least Windows users wouldn't be completely out of luck, like I am
today.  You see, IBM did it in the WORST POSSIBLE WAY.  They
used Java in a way that makes it _only_ run in Windows.  So, you get the
worst of all worlds.  Java's performance penalty.  No alternatives for
operating system / connection methods.


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