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> -----Original Message-----
> From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Klement
> Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 2:52 PM
> To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
> Subject: RE: Free-Form vs Fixed Form.
> 
> 
> > The productivity enhancements of code-assist and the 
> outline view are by
> > themselves tremendous.
> 
> Code assist is okay... I haven't found that it makes a big 
> difference for 
> me, as I spend enough time in RPG that I pretty much have all 
> of the BIFs 
> and opcodes memorized.  When I do come across details that I don't 
> remember, it's not a big deal for me to have a separate window open 
> pointing to the Information Center (actually, I usually do anyway!)

I don't usually use code-assist for bifs or op-codes either.

But I love being able to use it for long procedure and variable names.


> 
> Outline view... I've never found a practical purpose for.  
> Other than to 
> ooh and ahhh over what a neat feature it is...   while 
> writing a program, 
> what do you use it for?  It doesn't update as you're typing, 
> so you have 
> to click refresh and wait 2 minutes for a result.  Once it 
> has a result, 
> what do you do with it?  Jump from subprocedure to subprocedure?  Big 
> hairy deal!

I find the ability to jump between procedures quite useful.  In
addition, the cross reference functionality is quite useful.  

> 
> > Yes it takes a bigger PC, but I ran WDSCi at home quite 
> happily on an
> > old slot-A Athlon 850 with less than 1GB RAM (I think 512 or 768).
> 
> It doesn't run on my Pentium 750.  It's extremely slow on my Pentium 
> 1.7ghz w/768mb of RAM.  It runs acceptably well on my 3ghz 
> Pentium w/1gb 
> of RAM.... but is still slower than SEU, or for that matter any other 
> editor ever created.

I'd be happy to send you my Athlon 850. <grin>

On my new dual-core AMD Opteron 64bit w/1GB RAM,  WDSCi is faster than
SEU (over VPN).

Then again, maybe I'll bring my Athlon 850 into work to replace the P4
1.6GHz I've got here...it's always been dog slow.

Perhaps you should be giving AMD a try?

> 
> >
> > Force yourself to use WDSCi for a couple of weeks.  You 
> won't go back.
> >
> 
> WDSC is well designed and very poorly implemented.  It's very 
> buggy.  It's 
> very slow.
> 
> a) Originally, I had a lot of problems with crashes.  With 
> help from list 
> members, I managed to get those sorted out.

I've had a few crashes, but when running on a Windows PC I've learned to
deal.

Ctrl-S is your friend.

> 
> b) I have problems with source members "disappearing".  It 
> doesn't happen 
> very often, but I've had source members just seem to 
> disappear from the 
> iSeries.  They still exist on the PC in WDSC, but when you 
> save them, the 
> changes only go to the PC.

Never seen this.

> 
> c) I've had similar problems where the source members still 
> exist on the 
> iSeries, but don't get updated by WDSC when I make changes.  
> The changes 
> only go to the PC.

Or this.

> 
> d) I'm constantly annoyed my WDSC's tendency to download all of the 
> members in a source file.  Especially since it does so very 
> slowly.  If I 
> hit ctrl-shift-I and tell it the specific member I want to 
> open, why on 
> earth do I want to wait 3 minutes while it downloads a list 
> of all of the 
> members?

Or this.  Seems like it might be refreshing a cache somewhere.  Have you
tried asking the WDSC list about this?

> 
> e) WDSC's support for CL programs is really awful.  It works 
> right most of 
> the time, but frequently does something strange.  Granted, it's much 
> better for RPG than CL, but still...  doesn't anyone test 
> these things?

I agree, but I do little in CL anymore.

> 
> f) The "Find" facility in WDSC is a joke.  For each member it 
> searches, it 
> creates a spooled file on the iSeries -- no idea why -- and 
> it's HORRIBLY 
> slow.  I don't need thousands of spooled files created on my system 
> (particularly since the print queue that it automatically 
> picks for me -- 
> without asking I might add -- is set to print 
> automatically!).  Why can't 
> it just search the members and return the results?  Why does 
> it need to 
> generate spooled files, then download the spooled files?  I 
> could write a 
> better, more efficient, less irritating search function in 
> under an hour. 
> But apparently in version 5.1.2 (which implies lots of 
> previous versions!) 
> IBM hasn't been able to figure out how to write a simple 
> program to scan 
> members and return the results.

Can't say as I've ever tried the find function across members.  I often
use find to search the current member but that's it.



> 
> g) WDSC requires Windows.  If you're a Mac or Linux user, 
> give up, IBM 
> hates you and will try to tell you that you're doing things WRONG if 
> you're not using Windows.

I've got to agree that it should be made available on non-Windows
platforms.  

> 
> h) The debugger is slow and ungainly and very complicated to 
> use.  There 
> are better GUI debuggers included with the system!  And a 
> better green 
> screen one, as well.
> 
> i) Although WDSC does let you have many members open at once, 
> it takes a 
> lot of playing around with customizing the view, closing the 180 
> unnecessary things that it opens automatically for you, making other 
> things "auto-hide", etc. until you can get enough space in 
> the view where 
> you can actually see more than one member at a time.  When 
> you can only 
> see one member, having more than one open isn't all that 
> useful.  With SEU 
> I can have 4 of them open where I can see them all at once 
> simply by using 
> 4 different 5250 windows.

Not sure I see the point, I make the changes I want, and save it as a
new perspective.

My only complaint is when opening multiple members, I have to manually
move them around.  But that's not too bad.  In addition, if you really
want to you could always open 4 separate WDSCi windows.

> 
> 
> WDSC does have some nice features:
> 
> a) The "Undo" key.
> 
> b) The HTML editor
> 
> c) The Java editor
> 
> 
> But I definitely found that the cons outweigh the pros at 
> this point in 
> time.  In time, IBM may improve WDSC to the point where it's 
> a suitable 
> replacement for SEU, but it's not one yet (IMHO)
> 
> We have a college intern here.  She hates SEU with a passion. 
>  She thinks 
> it's very unintuitive, since she's always used PC editors and the 
> screen-at-a-time way of thinking for 5250 screens just 
> confuses the heck 
> out of her.  So she uses WDSC exclusively -- but she doesn't 
> like all the 
> quirks either.  In her mind it's better than SEU, but she 
> wishes it was 
> more stable and easier to use, like any of Microsoft's products.
> 
> iSeries Network did a blog where 5 people at KOA tried to 
> adapt from the 
> old PDM/SEU environment to WDSC, and wrote about their 
> experiences.  Of 
> those 5, one ended up switching jobs and never finishing the 
> experiment. 
> OF those that did finish, 2 of them transitioned to WDSC, and 
> 2 of them 
> did not and decided to stay with the older tools.
> 
> The opinion of at least one of those who did switch was that WDSC was 
> "still new."  Meaning that there were still things in it that 
> needed work 
> before he'd consider it a mature product.  He said that 
> they've come a 
> long way and that he's convinced that it's useable.
> 
> My experience with it was similar.  It feels like you're 
> testing out code 
> that's been released to the public for beta-testing.
> 
> I just don't understand how people on these lists can jump in and say 
> things like "once you've used it you won't go back".  It just 
> doesn't make 
> sense... it's just not that great.

Each to his own.

But IMHO, it is that great compared to SEU.  Though I agree that it's
not up to the standards that Microsoft's IDEs set.

Don't get me wrong, I've always liked SEU.  It was a great step up from
the line based editor I used on the platform I was on prior to moving to
the 400.

Charles


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