On 4/1/2015 10:45 PM, John Yeung wrote:
On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 6:31 PM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The low adoption rate speaks only to the fact that
this market genuinely feels that SEU is Plenty Good Enough.
OK. That sounds right to me. It also means the "problem", such as it
is, is just this side of intractable, because there are some powerful
chicken-egg relationships in play.
I maintain that the issue was never about the cost - everybody pays for
SEU and SEU is pants.
I'm less convinced about this part of your argument. It's difficult
to fully extricate cost. But first I think it's worth clarifying:
Are you saying SEU is a separate cost from the compilers? You can buy
the compilers without buying SEU?
7.2. I had to get separate Proofs of Entitlement for ADTS (which is PDM
+ SEU), Heritage compilers, ILE compilers, and RDi. To be completely
open, IBM gives away entitlements to ADTS so if you bought a compiler in
the past, you basically get X free seats for SEU here in the future.
But we pay software maintenance on ADTS, so there's that.
I think this is another case of you can't please all the people all
the time. Is IBM really facing a situation where they are going to
lose customers if they don't de-bundle the "development tools"?
I don't know, and can't speak for IBM. Heck, it's becoming clear that I
can't even speak for myself! :-) It may very well be a case of not
being able to please everyone, but if it is, then why do colleagues
sound like this (15+ years and counting):
Me: Try RDi; man I love this thing!
X: I heard it was bloatware
Me: Did YOU try it?
X: I heard it was buggy
Me: Did you TRY it?
X: I heard it needs a cutting edge PC
Me: DID YOU TRY it?
X: It costs too much
Me: Did you ask the boss if he'd spend the money?
X: I just know he'll say no
Me: So you won't bother asking the boss?
X: I heard the learning curve was awful
Me: So... you're not going to install the free trial?
X: SEU is faster
Me: And you know this because you've tried it?
X: Y tried it in 2001 and the installer was awful
Me: So... multiple reasons why SEU is better yet you yourself have not
actually tried it?
X: I don't need to try it. SEU is fine.
Mr X has many objections to /even trying/ RDi; one of which is
apparently 'cost'. I say apparently because during the years when the
cost was actually zero that only removed one objection to even trying it
out. And of course, Mr X didn't try it because of all his other
'objections'.
Which is why I have formed the opinion that cost is not the predominant
factor in the popularity of SEU. I believe that the predominant factor
is that programmers on this platform are very happy with SEU and that
all of the objections - cost included - are rationalisations for that
opinion. It's taken me years to get there, but search the archives;
read any thread where RDi, RDP, WDSC, or even Code/400 are 'compared' to
SEU. I can't think of a single conversation that doesn't look like the
above. A slew of objections with cost being the deal killer and yet Mr
X didn't try WDSC when cost wasn't a factor at all. With cost
completely removed, there's always some other deal killer to fall back on.
As far as I'm concerned, if one likes SEU, embrace that and enjoy one's
editor of choice. But it's a little sad to constantly hear how poor RDi
is from people who haven't tried it. And speaking to your 'then vs now'
thought, there are people who won't try 9.1 because 'WDSC 4 was a dog'.
midrange.com
