On 6 April 2015 at 01:01, John Yeung <gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 11:18 AM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I exclusively
use the open source tn5250 and don't miss File Transfer at all.
Imagine this exercise: Change the properties of the desktop link to
point to tn5250 instead of IBM i Access. How many would call telling
you that they can no longer do X, where X is a feature of IBM i Access
that is unavailable in alternative emulators?
Interestingly (and sorry for responding to perhaps the most off-topic
portion of an otherwise very pertinent and insightful post), I am one
of those folks that really has a strong preference for IBM i Access.
And for relatively superficial-sounding reasons.
Developers generally have different needs than other 5250 emulator
users. I'm not advocating zero seats, merely eliminating superfluous
seats; seats for users who could be using simple telnet if it mapped F
keys properly. I could be wrong, but is there a MORE expensive 5250
emulator than IBM i Access? Cost apparently ISN'T the deal killer for
5250 emulation, perhaps there's some recognition that the company is
getting something for that cost.
It's exactly this which is being debated: What do I get for that cost?
Some of us who use RDi find that the benefits are worth it. Some
don't - this is not surprising among developers. Editors are very
personal to us, and that's perfectly fine. My boss wanted to force
all the developers to use the licences of RDi he paid for and I told
him to leave the SEU users alone, precisely because forcing an editor
on a developer is like kicking her in the teeth. I would much rather
persuade her to try RDi: I naively believe that most developers who
try it will like it. But if they don't like it, that's still OK. If
RDi can't convince developers, it's not there yet. For them. (I used
to be in the 'force them' camp but came to my senses, such as they
are).
Let me back up slightly: I have not used "THE open-source tn5250".
Not that I know of. I have used Mocha and some other emulator, maybe
PowerTerm. (And I'm a bit hazy on the specifics, but could Mocha
possibly be built from the open-source tn5250, in a similar way that
RDi is built from open-source Eclipse?)
No. Mocha is not built atop the open source tn5250.
http://tn5250.sourceforge.net/ It won't surprise you to hear that
Scott Klement is one of the authors of tn5250. I don't often edit RPG
with SEU, but when I do, it's always with the open source tn5250.
Finally, I don't know if you're counting the ODBC driver that comes
with Access.
ODBC is one of the no-charge features of IBM i Access.
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/i/access/windows.html
I want to reiterate: I'm not Bruce, Henrik or Scott. I don't spend my
day wrapping low level APIs into larger APIs for other programmers to
consume. I am (hey!) an RPGLE programmer. I routinely work on
programs with O-specs, subfiles, a mix of SQL and RLA. I write every
line of new code in fully free RPG. In order to do that, I almost
always refactor some bit of mainline code into a subprocedure.
Sometimes that subprocedure goes into a service program and when it
does, it's drop dead simple [1] to open up all the needed source files
in one go and move the source block around. I don't do any webbish
stuff at all - we have a team of .NETters for that. I give them
stored procedures, written in RPG because the database isn't quite
ready for SQL stored procs just yet. If I could grow a beard, I'd be
the very stereotype of a greybeard working on RPG back end code.
I do occasionally, find the need to use an API, and when I do, I write
that wrapper in RPG and I write it using RDi, I myself am not
disputing Scott, Bruce or Henrik's experience; their eyes and fingers
have different needs than mine. But I myself never fire up SEU to do
work on low level stuff. The corollary is that for me, RDi doesn't
get in the way of working on low level stuff. For me - I'm sharing
this because I think other RPG programmers should hear the experience
of a really vanilla RPG programmer.
I use RDi exclusively and I find that for me, for the work that I do,
I /think/ better in RDi than I did in SEU, and I used SEU for many,
many years, even writing line command exit programs to make my SEU
life easier. So for me, the cost is more than outweighed by the
benefit. Others necessarily have a different calculus and that's as
it should be, but how does one form and maintain a strong opinion
about RDi without ever loading the trial?
All those years ago, I loaded Code/400 during my lunch hour, and I
tinkered with it during lunch and 'after hours' until I got to the
'Aha!' that doing something in Code is different to doing it in SEU.
SEU is not RDi and RDi is not SEU. There is some muscle memory that
needs to be reprogrammed. I personally didn't find that a huge lift.
Maybe the biggest thing I myself had to learn was to open RDi in the
morning and leave it open all day. I do it with Firefox and
Thunderbird and email; what's one more? I can't remember but I'd say
I was mostly off of SEU with a week of noodling 'off hours' with
Code/400, but that was because I wanted to be off of SEU. If I'd been
forced to try Code/400 my heart would certainly have been set against
it and I'd still be using SEU today.
I still think that the low RDi adoption rate is due to lack of
interest on the part of developers in the community. Lack of interest
can mean 'tried it but meh', but often it means 'not gonna try it.'
That's perfectly fine, but I respectfully believe that if you (the
generic third person) engage the community (myself among that number)
about RDi and you're unwilling to try it, I think you (the generic
third person) are misunderstanding the rationale of engagement. It's
fine to vent - put it in the subject line. Get it off your (the
generic third person) chest and purge the bad feelings from your soul.
I'll commiserate with you - there are some things I dearly miss in an
editor. But I'm too inept socially to grok that a thread is about
venting until I finally realise after a week of back and forth that
not one single participant has noted that she's going to load RDi to
see what all the fuss is about.
I apologise for the bandwidth and can only hope that other 'vanilla'
RPG programmers like me found some value. There are so many of us who
just don't hear about things except through the online community...
anyway, I won't take up any more.
--buck
[1] it has to be drop dead simple. I'm a viola player. (A musical
joke for the violinists and cellists among us. <grin>)
midrange.com
