RE: Web Interfacing Advantages?

[qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Tom Liotta)]

rpg400-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>   1. RE: Web Interfacing Advantages? (Walden H. Leverich)
>
>OK, we'll piss of David, but this is where the thread is, sorry David.

There are indeed very definite aspects of this that all OSG (old-school guy) 
RPGers ought to be paying attention to.

>>And that is you have to learn .NET and
>>start using it to front end your RPG applications.
>
>Hey, I'm the first to push .NET! My point is, changing a program for
>technologies sake isn't a wise business move.

Under this category -- "front end your RPG apps" -- comes a big element that 
deserves serious attention for OSG RPGers: procedural vs. event-driven. Trying 
to replace the green-screen I/O with a web (or other GUI) interface might not 
make sense; the RPG app itself might need to be redesigned from the database 
up. (And the database isn't guaranteed to remain untouched.)

I suspect that this aspect alone can be the stumbling block. The OSGs might 
already know what effort is involved and realize that this can be much more 
than a simple change in interface. The company _might_ be willing to fund 
training; but when it comes time to approve the budget for the actual project? 
When the time estimates need to be justified? When the test schedules are 
known? Who's butts are on the line at implementation time?

Of course, if apps have been architected since, say, since V3R1 to separate 
presentation from business logic, to separate data access from UI, to have apps 
in existence _today_ that lend themselves to unplugging one UI and plugging in 
another, then I'd guess that the OSGs are less likely to have much complaint. 
But how many companies did anything to position their apps for this change?

Tom Liotta