I just use the tools I have at hand.
Thanks again.
-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Scott Klement
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 5:55 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: Send_File API versus Send API over a Socket
Hi Walden,
I agree with your opinion that it doesn't make sense to write your own
proprietary file transfer protocol when there are so many good ones
already available. Why re-invent the wheel?
Having said that, there are situations (albeit, rare ones) where
something custom designed makes sense. FTP, NFS and SMB (and SFTP as
well) are NOT program-to-program communications, they're "program to
file system" communications which are not suitable in many cases. HTTP
does offer a nice option for program to program -- but the stateless
nature isn't suitable for every purpose under the sun. So there are
rare occasions where it makes sense to design you own tool.
I TOTALLY disagree with your assessment that RPG is a bad language to do
system-level stuff. Although it wasn't really designed for it, todays
RPG language is a great language for some kinds of lower-level
programming. I'm sorry, but C requires too much work to get the job
done a lot of the time, and RPG is certainly more suitable to system
level stuff than Cobol, CL, Java, or PHP.
On that score, I come from a position of experience... i write a lot of
lower-level stuff in both RPG and C, and I find RPG easier. Granted, I
don't go all the way down to the hardware level, but neither is Shannon
in this situation...
Walden H. Leverich wrote:
Shannon,
"custom code", "because my manager said so" and all that jazz aside, you
realize you're attempting to re-write some very basic file handing code
in a language that wasn't designed to do system-level stuff, right?
Given that you can use FTP, NFS, HTTP, SMB, and probably 7 or 8 other
existing, coded, tested, trusted protocols for transferring a file
between two machines, why the heck would you even consider writing your
own?
Seriously!? Not trying to be a pain.
-Walden
midrange.com
