Re: RPG and Excel

On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 3:25 PM, Roger Harman <roger.harman@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

John is probably dancing in the streets since the announcement of "official" Python support.

Not really. Maybe you missed the earlier discussion of it, when it
was merely hinted at by Tim Rowe, rather than officially released. I
didn't know it was officially released until you mentioned it just
now, but I see that it was part of the 7.2 TR 2 and 7.1 TR 10
packages.

I think it's an important step. There are lots of folks who won't
give anything a serious look unless it is officially blessed by IBM,
so for those people, this is the first time that Python is actually
available for the i.

But for folks who are on older versions of the OS (pre-7.1), the
official Python still isn't available. iSeriesPython works on V5R3
and up.

Even on 7.1, it's not clear to me that 5733-OPS Option 2 will be as
easy to get up and running as iSeriesPython. When I said "you can
install it in half an hour if you're slow" I was talking about
iSeriesPython. A typical programmer can install iSeriesPython, just
by downloading it and following the provided simple instructions. I
don't know if I can install 5733-OPS Option 2 at all (I think our
admin would have to do that, for authority reasons if nothing else;
but it so happens I have no idea how to install licensed programs or
PTFs or other "system" tasks).

So, I'm glad for the IBM i community. It remains to be seen whether
I'll personally derive any benefit from the official Python. It will
depend on how nice their "native interoperability" features are (e.g.
working with physical files, user spaces, *PGM objects, data areas,
etc.) compared to iSeriesPython.

John Y.