RE: RPG UI Frameworks was->RE: Fw: Enhancements to RPG -- RPG400-L

I think CELL has on-board graphics processing units--which means no need for a
large graphics card. Would this be a way to finally get a GUI on the iSeries?
<g>

-Bob Cozzi
www.i5PodCast.com
Ask your manager to watch i5 TV

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Wilt, Charles
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 9:15 AM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: RE: RPG UI Frameworks was->RE: Fw: Enhancements to RPG

My guess would be that the cell's design while great for graphics, also turns
out to be great for work
with lots of certain mathematical operations.

AMD/ATI I believe pioneered running SETI@Home (or something similar) on your
graphics card.

I'd guess IBM putting the cell chip into their mainframes would be for similar
work.

Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jerry Adams
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 11:01 AM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: RPG UI Frameworks was->RE: Fw: Enhancements to RPG

I read in the Business section of this morning's paper that
IBM was going to start putting the PS3 chip on "mainframes."
No specifics as top what mainframes meant, could be just the
zSeries, could include the i and, even, p.

The PS3 chip is the one that IBM and Sony developed for kick
butt graphics on the Playstation. Not being a double E
myself, I'm not sure what the actual implications for the UI
on the System i5 might be. But with the myriad of assaults
(under the radar for the most part) by IBM on M$ turf, I
wouldn't be surprised if this was another one in some form or fashion.

Or maybe it's just a graphics card.

* Jerry C. Adams
*IBM System i5/iSeries Programmer/Analyst B&W Wholesale
Distributors, Inc.* * voice
615.995.7024
fax
615.995.1201
email
jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Bob Cozzi wrote:

Aaron,
Believe me, I've been a proponent of GUI with RPG for

decades. Believe

me, I drank that Kool-Aid long before you learned to drive.

I welcome

you to the on-going battle. To me, Web/Browser interfaces

via CGILIB

or others are the closest we've come to a great RPG GUI so far. The
guys at eXport Ventures did a great graphical, event driven

RPG user

interface years ago--but it didn't take off very much.

Most of this event-driven stuff really needs an OS that can handle
dispatching the event messages. Certainly OS/400 can do

that, but it doesn't.

However, a Web/Browser interface can already do

event-driven stuff via

AJAX and regular CGI calls to RPG or any language. What would be
beneficial is the ability to "AJAX to" a subprocedure

directly rather

than only to a program. I'm not certain if that's much

better from a

performance standpoint than just leaving a CGI program

active in its

A/G and reactivating it, but it would be cooler. :)

-Bob Cozzi
www.i5PodCast.com
Ask your manager to watch i5 TV

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces+bob=rpgworld.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces+bob=rpgworld.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On

Behalf Of

albartell
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:04 AM
To: 'RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: RPG UI Frameworks was->RE: Fw: Enhancements to RPG

<Cozzi said>Class (5) items are similar to class (3) items in their
importance. Sure it would be cool to have, for example, integrated
CGI/Web built-in functions in RPG IV, but that would have been
important in 1998, or
2002 or 2004 or 2006. In 2008 and beyond it is sort of like adding
Pointer Support to CL in 2006. Why do I care? I've already

coded all

the CL I'm ever going to code. By 2008 or 2009 I've already written
tons of CGI/Web stuff using xTools, CGIDEV2, or Brad's eRPG

library or

even using the CGI APIs so why would I care? (CGI/RPG is just an
metaphor here.)

<Aaron responds with>
Bob, I don't think you are recognizing the significance of

why people

are leaving in droves off of the iSeries. They aren't

leaving because

RPG is a bad business logic language. They aren't leaving

because the

iSeries is an unstable platform. Many are leaving because

of look and

feel - plain and simple. The cost to get to that new look

and feel on

the iSeries is simply more expensive than going to .NET (at

least initially).

The reality of the matter is that most, if not all, of the CGIDEV2
equivalents out there are simply one step above doing raw

CGI. If I

had not worked with frameworks in PHP and Java then I would be
standing right next to you with what you are saying, but there is a
lot to be said about a solid and easy to use Web/GUI thick client
framework. Having to write less plumbing saves a lot of time (i.e.
look at CHAIN vs. SQL single record SELECT).

As I said in another post awhile back, RPG is fairly well

suited for

an event driven UI framework because of procedure pointers and
callback capabilities. Just think if there was an RPG "router"
program that front ended your RPG program that had business

logic and

screen flow code. Every time an event (e.g. specific customer
selected from an HTML table) occurred it would send the

current form

to the RPG router program on the server. The router program would
then gain entry into your RPG program by way of procedure

pointer (see example code below).

D cust_listselect_event...
D PI
D pSessUId 15P 0 Value
D pEvtTyp 10 Value
D pUIObjNam 50 Value

D cstNum s 10u 0
/free

cstNum = RPGUI_getSelectedRowUnqId(pSessUId);
RPGUI_addControllerParm('EditCust': cstNum); //

Priming next

screens input values
RPGUI_displayScreen('EditCust');

/end-free

I am debating whether to pursue that thought with a full

prototype.

Does anybody else see the potential that I am seeing?

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

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