Re: Externalizing I/O was RPG read loops

Carel,

Don't get Java Beans and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) confused.  They are
very very different animals.  I also dislike EJB and probably for the same
reasons you do.  I'm more interested in stuff like JDO, Hibernate or iBATIS
for my database access.

Java Beans is just a standard way of writing getters and setters so that an
IDE can display properties instead of fields.  If you have a GetName and a
SetName in a Java Bean then an IDE can display a Name property for the
object that you can display and change.  If you provide only a GetName then
you have a Name property that you can display but can't change.  You can
then save those values in a properties file that can be used to initialize
the Java Bean.

EJB deals with stuff like container managed persistence (that database
access stuff), distributed applications and other important stuff I'm not
aware of and am not sure I want to know.

What's so hard to write a program that, given a file, will generate RPG for
those 50 getters and setters?  It's not that hard and it's a rather
interesting program.  Once you write that then you'll never have to code a
database file statement in your applications programs.  For every new file
you create you run it through your code generator.  Flesh out the generated
source with the important stuff.

Yeah, using getters and setters avoid programming errors too. That's the
idea.  Can't do a typo in a field name and update the wrong field.

Paul

-- 
Paul Morgan
Senior Programmer Analyst - Retail
J. Jill Group
100 Birch Pond Drive, PO Box 2009
Tilton, NH 03276-2009
Phone: (603) 266-2117
Fax:   (603) 266-2333

"Carel Teijgeler" wrote

> JavaBeans? I thought so. Suitable for RPG? Don't think so.
>
> My personal dislike of EJB is database access, which is the main issue on
an AS/400.
>
> If a file has 50 or more fields i have to write 50 or more get-methods to
retrieve one single piece of data, whether or nor it is derived data
(calculations) and 50 or more setters to update a single piece of data,
before the record will be updated. I am too lazy to write such nonsense.
> I know in the *SRVPGM the fields of a PF are global, so any procedure
(read, set, get) has access to all data of a read record with only checking
the key value(s). But what do you achieve with that? Not much, I think. The
given example looks ridiculous.
>
> I prefer one read of the record and all data available. Data can be passed
in a DS (or with a pointer). If you like you can format the required values
in the *SRVPGM and pass it back in the DS.
>
> The last point on erroneous changing data in the wrong field. PF fields
not reverenced ina PGM are not accessable (at least that is my experience
when in DBG, I expect that to be normal behaviour), so putting wrong data in
fields is a progamming error, not a logical one.
>
> Each his/her own preferences, but EJBs (and their clones) are (imho) not
suitable for database access and maintenance.
>
> Just my 2 Euro cents.
>
> Regards,
> Carel Teijgeler