Usage of WDSc

Bob,

I agree that the tool lacks general use.

Here at PLI, I'm the only developer who uses it full time, and only 2 of

the 15 other developers use it marginally.

The rest are stuck in PDM/SEU world, and don't see the point in
switching 
over.

This has the disadvantage for me that, if I ask for a more recent pc, 
management says that a 6-year old pc is just fine for PDM/SEU
development.

Peter Colpaert
Application Developer
PLI - IT - Kontich, Belgium
-----
Yoda of Borg are we.  Futile is resistance, assimilated will you be.
-----




Peter,
First, very lovely country you live in. I was there in 2005 and loved
it!
Second, I think that WDSC suffers from non-use by the community at
large. 
I'm
speculating that the vast majority of requests are coming from either 
non-RPG
development efforts or highly specialized projects, like commercial 
training.
If the tool becomes accessible and viable to the majority of RPG 
developers out
there, I think more and more requests for the stuff that applies to
their 
world
will be requested and thus more users will move to it.

For example, adding something to WDSC that exclusively or primarily
helps 
out
Java development probably adds 2 or 3 new users (I'm being generous) and
satisfies a handful of existing users. Adding something to WDSC that RPG
developers want/need could add dozens if not hundreds of new users as
well 
as
satisfy the silent few who already use the product.

-Bob Cozzi
www.i5PodCast.com
Ask your manager to watch i5 TV


Bob, Peter;
Second, it is a very lovely country, although I was there in 1963 in
October and it was COLD.

I almost laughed out load at the comment "everyone is using this".  I am
1 of 4 and the only one using it.  Over 75% of the emails I get I file
"for future reference" because they don't pertain to what I am doing.  

We are a multi-platform shop and we in the IBM realm are Legacy.  No new
development on the i5, no modernization on the i5 period.  We do green
screen, reports etc.  The old fashioned RPG stuff.  RSE is a good editor
and has some very nice features.  It also lacks in many ways especially
when it comes to green screens and reports.  I have tried CODE and could
not get a print file to compile they way I wanted it to.  At least RLU
saves the compile parameters and when you choose to compile you know
exactly where it went.  Of course since CODE is no longer going to be
part of WDSc for the red headed step-children, that is a moot point.

RSE is longwinded in installation and upgrades and comes up quirky more
often than not.  Upgrades are an exercise in pain and patience (min 4
hours on a T1).  Features are hidden beneath windows in obscure paths.
Settings go away because of an unfortunate key stroke (???) made, and
then take hours or days to undo.

I think part of the problem is that this was designed by young
intelligent windows programmers with almost no input from the dinosaur
world.  Even IBM is treating us as LEGACY and therefore we have nothing
intelligent to offer.

The retirement countdown has commenced.  I will be interested to see
what happens when us dinosaurs all retire and these young intelligent
windows programmers try to re-write all those millions of lines of RPG
code into VB, JAVA, C++ and any other "new and improved" language that
comes along.  I expect a phone call.