What you will see is a concerted effort to integrate RPG as a
server-side language into IBM's GUI strategy, which is centered on EGL.
While I agree that _if_ EGL (or whatever its name is today) lives up to its
promise, it has potential for further integration with RPG. However, to
base RPG's entire UI future on a product that may flop just as badly in the
System i world as its antecedents would be short sighted to put it mildly.
EGL is great - but it still needs an AS (WAS or whatever) and that requires
a level of expertise in the shop that many may not be able to justify. Even
if they could justify it, corporate dictates in many shops categorically
rule out WAS and insist on .NET. So what do those RPG users do? Stay
green-screen?
I believe it is much more important for the compiler to surface (as an API)
some form of interface perhaps based on existing I/O op-codes, perhaps on
new ones. Such interface to supply the buffer, and information relating to
the layout and type of the data, etc. Think SPECIAL files with far greater
capability.
The interface to EGL would then be made available as an example of how the
APIs) can be used to integrate modern UIs with the RPG code.
To me this is the only thing that really makes sense - because nothing else
will allow the language to move forward fast enough to meet the future. IBM
does not have the resource, and releases come too slowly. Nothing else will
let RPG live alongside PHP, .NET, RoR, or whatever comes tomorrow.
Jon Paris
Partner400
www.Partner400.com
midrange.com
