RE: IFS files and VARPG

Hi Larry,

Great story!  Now your comments make a lot more sense.  It's good to have a
wider world view than just RPG; it makes you appreciate how much RPG does
for you.  When you write a program that does level breaks in some language
other than RPG, you can really appreciate how much L0-9 actually do for you.
I guess my feeling would be that I'd like RPG to do stream files with an
F-spec, but I'd want to understand what it's doing too.

Btw, what resources (i.e. manuals etc) did you use to learn Java on your PC?

Peter Dow
Dow Software Services, Inc.
www.dowsoftware.com
909 793-9050 voice
909 793-4480 fax


> -----Original Message-----
> From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Larry Ducie
> Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 1:01 PM
> To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: IFS files and VARPG
>
>
> Hi Booth,
>
> <snip>
> I am curious Larry. I believe I understand your comments, but I do not
> understand where you are going with the discussion.
> </snip>
>
> I'm not sure either. :-)
>
> OK. Let me give you an idea of where I'm coming from:
>
> For many years I coded in RPG400. To me the whole computing world existed
> within QSYS.LIB. Apart from the odd need for documents stored within QDLS
> for FTPing to remote sites, there was simply nothing else. By 2001 I was a
> senior programmer for the central development team at JBA. I was doing all
> kinds of clever stuff and I totally loved it. I was the master of
> my little
> world.
>
> Then...
>
> I left the ivory tower at JBA to get some "real world" experience
> at a user
> site. Here I cross-trained to RPG IV - I wasn't taught ILE
> because somebody
> at the company did something really bad with *NEW activation
> groups and ILE
> was banned! Nevertheless, I totally enjoyed working in RPG IV -
> it was like
> RPG Max.
>
> Now, about mid 2003 we had a requirement to interface with a new warehouse
> management system. This system was to run on a web application
> server, using
> an Oracle database running on a Sun Solaris machine. The requirement
> stipulated that all communications was to be via XML. I was co-opted onto
> the team because I was deemed "the most technically minded" and I was sent
> off to generate XML composition/decomposition software. Cool right??? Well
> yeah, it was - but RPG just wasn't the right tool for this particular job.
> I'm not saying RPG can't hack it because it clearly can. I'm saying that I
> had to start from zero knowledge about stream files and I had to develop
> fully functional code to work with XML. That meant that I really needed to
> use software that conformed to some kind of accepted standard. Our
> department wouldn't stump up any money so that meant one route - open
> source. As you can imagine, any google of open source XML
> software gives you
> about 1,000,000 java sites to each RPG site. So, most of my
> initial efforts
> was spent trying to understand XML and parsers by writing java code on my
> PC. It was only once I had got to grips with this whole "other
> world" that I
> was in a position to tackle the job of translating what I had
> learned "on my
> travels" back in QSYS.LIB. I couldn't simply port my java code onto the
> iSeries. I did do this - the solution used java and xslt. It worked like a
> charm, but was a little slow (due to the fact that I was told any
> java code
> must be called from RPG!!!). But, as it turned out the other
> programmers did
> not understand any of it so I had to find a solution in RPG.
> Bizarrely, this
> involved using full ILE - I learned it in my own time and got the IBM ILE
> RPG Certification at my own expense. This gave me the backing to tell my
> managers that I simply had to use ILE to get this solution working. They
> caved-in and allowed it.
>
> Thankfully the world consists of generous people like Scott Klement, Jon
> Paris, Bob Cozzi, Joe Pluta, Barbara Morris, and many, many
> others. I found
> this list and clung to it like a life raft for months. My efforts
> were made
> much easier because the way stream files are handled on the iSeries is the
> very same unix system interface functions I had read in the many books I
> purchased when researching XML. To my utter astonishment the
> iSeries is MUCH
> MORE than QSYS.LIB. I found a whole arena within the iSeries which was
> comfortingly familair - the root file system and QSHELL. Suddenly, I could
> read notes meant for java developers running code on a unix machine and,
> with a little tweaking, get similar results on the iSeries.
>
> Anyway, my point...
>
> I feel that RPG is an extremely powerful programming tool. But sometimes I
> feel its very power limits the developers that work with it (me included).
> It wasn't until I ventured outside RPG that I fully realised how
> much it did
> for me! That is a double-edged sword. Within RPG it doesn't matter, as it
> never had before. Outside RPG I was exposed because I didn't really fully
> understand how I did what I did. The F-spec is a perfect symbol of this -
> the one-line database panacea. It is a fantastic tool, but I understand
> nothing about any RDBMS by using it. Working within RPG this
> doesn't matter,
> but when I venture outside RPG it really, really does. So, I
> suppose talk of
> another F-spec solution for something which is extremely complex
> and diverse
> gives me the jitters - it makes me feel like I'm getting put back into my
> RPG box. This is felt even more when there are tools on the
> iSeries already
> available. :-)
>
> So, this discussion is probably not going anywhere. I just think we
> sometimes need to look outside RPG for solutions. Doing so
> provides us with
> other views of the programing world, and also teaches us to appreciate the
> power of RPG. I am no longer a RPG programmer - I am a very proud iSeries
> programmer. RPG is one very important tool in my toolbox. But I now have
> more than just a hammer. :-)
>
> Cheers
>
> Larry Ducie
> --
> This is the RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries (RPG400-L) mailing list
> To post a message email: RPG400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
> visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/rpg400-l
> or email: RPG400-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
> at http://archive.midrange.com/rpg400-l.
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.14.21/236 - Release Date: 1/20/2006
>
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.14.21/236 - Release Date: 1/20/2006