RE: RPG as a Web Service Consumer

| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Bartell, Aaron L.
| (TC)
| Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 6:18 PM

| Actually, I have a chunk of EDI x.12 experience.  I played a major role in
| implementing our first go at Harbinger (now Inovus).  Now that you know
| that, does that change your opinion about me?   I didn't think so. . . ;-)

Sure, I can't help but believe it DOES help to know SOMEthing of a persons
experience...  However, I have AGREED with parts of your previous posts
either way, Aaron, for example:

"I think you are unfairly calling XML "clumsy" when in all actuality it is
so powerful that it can adhere to almost any situation as far as data
transportand config files go.  Can flexible create problems . . . oh yeah!
Try to get people to agree on the same XML Schema :-)  But that will get
better as time goes on."

I agree with a fair bit of this, Aaron.  (I knew if I stuck in there with
you Long enough, Aaron, and kept reading all your posts..  Well, even though
I almost always disagree, I jes KNEW I'd find SOME things I'd agree with,
and a LOT I learn at least something from...;-D)  Link to something I wrote
countless ages ago, it seems:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0101546/2002/02/11.html#a29 But we draw some
different conclusions.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0101546/stories/2002/02/11/xmlWebServices.html
There's no particular benefit, contrary to what Mr. Bob Sutter (iirc?) and
Mr. Steven Mills and a bazillion others will /Tell/ ya, to having schemas
that accept any-ole-thang when the problem comes down to what people agree
to, all along.

As Joe already said.  Do you understand what Joe is saying, "And since most
of the people who push web services and/or XML are like you and do not have
that history, they are doomed to repeat it."  Kids (and adults) these days
sure like-ta THINK they are INVENTING a REVOLUTIONARY NEW THING,
inter-company transactions and correspondence and such!!!  T'ain't so, just
because some lamers must PERCEIVE themselves as geniuses inventing all this
"new" stuff.  This has been done, and "those who don't learn the lessons of
history are doomed to repeat it."  Applies to youngsters and oldsters alike,
but this generation of folks has seemingly PERFECTED ignorance, imo/o,
especially in IT.  (You don't suppose some-a these problems in IT come outta
the "me generation", do ya?...?!?)

So XML is what I call WICKED powerful that just chews up cycles.  However,
there was a small typo, in the following...:-D "I just didn't like to have
my feet in both camps of deciding when it was small enough to let [Java]
handle it and when it was [of a usual size from miniscule to humongously]
large enough to pick [RPG or Cobol] instead."  I believe anyway, that's how
I would look at it.

And you're now getting into my domain of moderate-expertise, in the
following:  Imo/o:  "The problems you stated aren't with XML it is with the
organizations that..."  Not "use them", but the orgs that build these
standards.  This is something I've studied a fair bit last couple/few years,
so am not guessing about.  And when you say, "I think we are on the verge of
getting some nice tools "..  Well, I've heard-a all these nice tools are
a-coming, from TONS of different people for DECADES, and that's WHY I am
from MO...  Sheesh.  Hear *same exact thing* about RDF, and wonder are you
using any RDF Aaron?  Do you expect to, are is that meme not cool enough
yet?

"I think we can become less and less concerned about the size of XML."  I,
personally, go back and forth on this issue.  But, "Are some of technologies
difficult to use? Most definitely, but..."  Well, you see Aaron:  There ARE
no buts about it.  It's overly complicated, just like you say.  It's the
LAYERS it adds, is the problem.

You wanna mirror a business on platters of memory, is complicated enough.
Abstracting additional layers on top of that and you just create a big
maintenance bother, on each layer.

And I feel your pain, Aaron, and am glad I do NOT hafta worry this kind of
stuff:  "I would be more concerned about
how many different web servers I hit in a corporate environment before I get
my result, over how big my file is."  Sorry your Enterprise DB is in that
kind-a shape (but know a lot are).  Tough break, that one, having your
Enterprise assets spread out all over like papers are spread out all over
the floor of my livingroom/office.  So I know how ugly that can be, and
would not WANT my primary assets that drive the info-flow through the
Enterprise in that shape.  Some don't have any choice about it, of course.
But if you look at your data and softgear as ASSETS, just as much as (whole
lot MORE than) your hardgear..  Well, I'd treat my portfolio of corporate
assets much better than I treat the papers spread out my office, if the biz
is any bigger than my own piddly company.  And with SAN technology
improving, even folks that didn't have the foresight may be able to connect
their hodge-podge pseudo-data-base together, who knows??

But I don't have that problem, in the coding I do, since the DB is kept on
400 and distributed from there.  So, because of that, am able to look
forward to be even much MORE concerned about how many MCM's I'm gonna hafta
hit, over the Grid, in order to scarf up enough memory and be able to sync
the cache properly, is what I'd LIKE to look forward to anyway.  So I'd
agree with your view "If it is purely for intranet stuff, then I wouldn't
even think about doing SOAP" because a TEN (Trusted Enterprise Network
like-)Grid I'd hope, would essentially just BE one honker of a huge intranet
between cooperating "enterprises".  So RPG would have been able to do just
fine in the current and possibly future environment, imv, except that some-a
all y'all got SO caught up in buzzwords and memes that you decided to change
RPG into C and Java clones, for some odd reason.

Reading your post this morning, Aaron, I draw similar conclusions:

| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Bartell, Aaron L.
| (TC)
| Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 9:22 AM

| >Oh give me a break.  Aaron, I'll let you in on a little secret: XML IS
| TEXT.
|
| So is a .gif or .jpg, but can you compare that to csv's?  No.
| Just like XML
| is not nearly the same as a csv.  Are they more alike than a .gif?  Yes.

Yes, XML is a whole LOT more like a .csv than a .gif, right?  A whole
HAILUVA lot more, so your point comes across to me as rather lame.

|
| <Joe>
| Great, then feel free to quit talking.  Because 350 bytes a message is
| important.  On the new wave of communications devices (cell phones and
| the like) with effective rates of around 28kbps or less, 350 bytes of
| overhead (700 for each round trip) means you can't even send five
| messages a second.  That's a ridiculous tradeoff just so some Hiphop
| Code Jockey doesn't have to actually write code.
| </Joe>
|
| Joe, just say that XML over broad band isn't that bad.  You can't dispute
| that.

See, this is a ridiculous piece of logic.  When did Joe EVER complain about
sending 700 bytes across broadband?!?


| You can move the discussion to say that transferring XML
| with floppy
| disks takes longer, but that is not what I was saying was a good
| use of XML.

And you continue to further bury yourself in the hole you've dug for
yourself, Aaron.  Can you point to the person who actually DID claim that
transferring XML with floppy disks IS a good use of XML, please?  Otherwise,
the analogy is not analagous.

Now transferring to cellphones is Somewhat similar, and IS a VERY good use
of XML.  Why you draw the comparison to floppy disks?  That's the kind of
logic that inspires going to EXTRA manual effor to insert XML into a TEXT
document of AN RPG LIST, btw, rather than using built-in features that I
would think most-all email software can automatically do.

Looks cool, I s'pose.

| Unless I am mistaken (just because I have only read about them
| and not used
| them) there are separate standards for sending stuff to cell
| phones, PDA's,
| RF's, etc. . . WML comes to mind.

Yeah, a different group of benevolent dictators carves out their own niche
for each area of standards.  Your not mistaken in this case, Aaron, but the
entire industry is mistaken to imagine this is a good way to develop
computer standards.