Re: Open Access to be generally available as part of the RPG compiler

From your posts in earlier discussions of Open Access, you seem to reject what Open Access is meant to do. That is your choice. All it does, basically, is tell the RPG runtime to call something different from what it normally would call, when there is an I/O opcode.

The thing that is called will be written by a developer such as yourself. It could use any of the things you mention to perform the task.

It has been correctly described as a very thin abstraction layer on top of API calls - that's fine. It is probably NOT something you need for YOUR development. You already know how to do all that API stuff. Just as we in our company know how to do that kind of thing.

But this provides a way for line-of-business developers to work with non-traditional data sources. Admittedly, it makes it possible - with a handler developed by someone such as you or another expert - for people who may not have time to learn all the stuff you know - for them to USE it effectively in their code. Using standard, long-understood RPG I/O opcodes.

The target for OA is not, as I see it, the person who writes an ICF program. THAT person should be writing the handler, so that others can take advantage of his or her knowledge. You already do that with things like service programs, with procedures others can call. Just raise one level of abstraction, so that a CHAIN results in the call that could have been used directly. I see this as a fully useful methodology, and a way to extend the life and use of the language. Others don't agree with me, so we'll have to agree to disagree.

As to the statement you quoted - perhaps it is better said with 2 more words - "Use of it can open up native RPG to working easily with mobile devices." I appreciate the opportunity to clarify that.

Regards
Vern

On 2/1/2012 1:17 PM, Henrik Rützou wrote:

Vern

"It can open up native RPG to working easily with mobile devices" ???

CGIDEV2, HTTPAPI and FTPAPI is much more clever - because it introduces
includes,
classes and methods to the common RPG programmer just like in JAVA C and
other
languages.

And may I point out that RPG OA is very much like ICF programming and I
don't think
you can find 1 % RPG programmers that actual can make a ICF program.



On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 8:10 PM, Vern Hamberg<vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Henryk - I never said that it did - come on yourself, man!

On 2/1/2012 12:57 PM, Henrik Rützou wrote:

Vern,

come on - RPG OA dosn't in itself support any technologies as HTML5, CSS3
or JSON
without a handler, it dosn't even support Apache I/O.


On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 7:46 PM, Vern Hamberg<vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

LOL James - since you write for v4r4 you may not have heard - just

kidding!

Open Access - full name is IBM Rational Open Access: RPG Edition -
consists of a new keyword on an F-spec ( HANDLER) and the runtime
support for it. In that keyword, you specify a program of procedure that
will "handle" the I/O for that file. It requires at least 6.1 of the OS.
It was announced almost 2 years ago at COMMON and originally was an
extra cost item - long story!

The most visible use is in making it possible to use native RPG to work
with web pages. I've written a handler over one of our products that
lets you work with remote databases as if they were local DB2 for i
databases. No embedded SQL required.

It can open up native RPG to working easily with mobile devices and with
web services. There are certainly impedance mismatches, but much can be
overcome.

These are like the old SPECIAL files on steroids. You should probably go
read Barbara's blog to see more about it.

HTH
Vern

On 2/1/2012 12:27 PM, James Lampert wrote:

Forgive me for walking into this thread late, but what's an "open
access"? I assume it has nothing to do with the usual meaning of

putting

scholarly journals on the web?

--
JHHL

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