RE: What do I use?

From: Paul Raulerson

What's so hard? Write a simple servlet that updates a counter and
outputs
it to a JSP. Have the JSP show the counter and a button. When the
button
is hit, go back to the servlet.

I rather thought you were talking about a real application, the kinds
that have to hit a backend datasource, perform significant edits on
the data, and redisplay screens fairly quickly. Hopefully doing
things like telling the user what went wrong. You can get subsecond
response out of a Palm M100 with the kind of application you describe.

You are either trying to be difficult, or else we have a serious
communication breakdown. You're complaining about the browser as a UI as
opposed to the Citrix approach, and I'm trying to tell you that the UI
overhead of JSP is almost zero.

Since JSP is only the UI, the back end is pretty much a non-issue, isn't it?
I mean, if the back end processing takes a long time, then the UI won't be
responsive whether it's Citrix or JSP. If the back end doesn't take a long
time, then it's not an issue.

Not that it matters, though. Since I use RPG as my back end and the JSP is
purely used for data conversion and presentation (as it should be), the
overhead due to the application is indeed negligible. The applications I'm
talking about are web-enabled ERP applications, about the most complex thing
you have ever seen.

Certainly more complex from a business perspective than, say, a word
processor.

I have not seen a real heavy duty transaction processing application
on the web with the kinds of response time you indicate you get -
especially on applications distributed over the WAN to multiple
remote geographic locations.

I'm telling you flat out that we get sub-second or near-subsecond response
time on a WAN for traditional ERP applications. That's about as heavy
transaction processing as it gets. You don't believe me? Then we don't
have much more to discuss, Paul. My clients believe me, that's all I care
about.

And now you're bringing up a WAN and multiple remote geographics, which
means lots and lots of CALs for Citrix. Or else NoMachine, which costs
thousands of dollars, even on a Linux box.

The browser is zero cost.

I do this with my PSC product. I web-enable subfiles and even over
a WAN we get sub-second response time.

That I would really like to see - especially with some rather complex
screens that require updating based upon processing of entered data.

And will you then get on the mailing list and explain to everyone that
you're completely wrong? Of course, my clients might not want to talk to
you; they LIKE the idea of their competition using expensive, cumbersome
options like Citrix.

Joe