On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 11:35 AM, <darren@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[With POI-via-RPG]
you've got almost the worst of all worlds: more complicated setup,
more complicated coding, poor-to-lackluster performance. The *one*
thing you get with [it] is that you don't have to learn another
language. (Yes, I understand that can be a big one, but it's still a
little sad.)
We actually get much better performance out of the SXSSF streaming model
available in POI.
Sure, it's much better with the streaming model than without, but you
can also do streaming in (say) Python, and despite Python being
regarded as a fairly slow language, the Python streaming solution is
competitive with (and may well beat) the POI-via-RPG streaming
solution. If you don't wrap POI with RPG, and instead just use
straight Java, then it should be faster still.
There are still reasons to use RPG, since we're not just creating a
spreadsheet, so I don't consider it sad.
First of all, you've already got your POI-via-RPG infrastructure set
up. What's sad is seeing situations like Darryl's, where he's
apparently still working on setting up that infrastructure. (And you
seem to keep missing that he's *reading* a spreadsheet, not writing
one.) He might well be done with the whole project by now if he'd
started out with iSeriesPython.
Second, you can do more than "just create a spreadsheet" with Python
or other technologies. One of the things I keep emphasizing is that
Python is an end-to-end, soup-to-nuts solution. It handles RLA file
access, SQL file access, IFS stream files, has more advanced
string-handling than RPG, has more advanced and flexible data
structures than RPG, has easy XML handling, easier JSON handling,
easier server-side Web development, easier consumption of Web
services, does e-mail and FTP, generates PDFs, the list just keeps
going on.
I can only think of one thing RPG does that Python can't, and that's
5250 green-screen interfaces. (Actually, there was a dynamic screen
manager for an older version of iSeriesPython which actually did
handle green screens, but it was never updated, and I can't recommend
that old version of Python, unless you are running V5R2 or earlier.)
I'm not advocating that people start abandoning RPG for everything
other than green-screen development. I still use RPG myself, even for
new development, and even for things other than green-screen stuff.
But seeing people struggle with difficult-to-configure or
difficult-to-use tools when there are easier, better tools out there
(for free!) is tough for me.
John Y.
midrange.com
