Re: WDSCI-L Digest, Vol 5, Issue 598

[Shane_Cessna@xxxxxxx]

   Shannon,

   Here's a link to an article I wrote for IMHO.midrange.com...hth....

   http://imho.midrange.com/2007/06/13/webfacing-vs-cgidev2/

   Shane Cessna
   Senior iSeries Programmer
   North American Lighting, Inc.
   217.465.6600 x7776 
   -----wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: -----

     ------------------------------

     message: 8
     date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 08:57:09 -0500
     from: "Shannon ODonnell" <sodonnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
     subject: [WDSCI-L] WebFacing - Is it ready for primetime?

     Hello List,

     I have a couple of clients who currently use Seagull's JWalk product.

     They are happy enough with it, I guess, except that they dislike greatly
     the
     update process of the activex component of it as that clogs their entire
     network while it is happening.

     The biggest problem they have with it though is that they now have an
     antagonistic relationship with their old vendor or their primary
     application, which JWalk is used to GUI-ize, and they want nothing more
     to
     do with that vendor.

     To complicate things, that vendor has the developer client to make
     changes
     to their Jwalk screens and to add new Jwalk panels, etc.. for new
     screens.
     And that's not a good thing because there is no chance at all of these
     Clients working things out with the vendor and so soon, jwalk apps are
     going
     to start failing as the client has other programmers create new 5250
     screens
     and modify existing screens, etc..

     I personally would like to take them the WebFaced route instead for a
     variety of reasons:

     -          Free - No licensing fees like they have  with Seagull
     -          Easy to convert existing and new screens
     -          Customizable
     -          No client software (Which is a big big plus for them)

     My question for the list is:  For those of you who use WebFacing, is it
     now
     stable enough and robust enough to be used for daily, heavy volume,
     production use?   I personally have done little more than play with it
     for
     the last several years. The last time I really spent a lot of time with
     the
     product was about 5 years ago and at that time, it wasn't the most
     stable
     tool in the world and it required you to do all they manual "fixes" and
     coding of config files, and such, to make it work (even to get it to
     compile
     sometimes).

     Does it now support most DDS keywords (Print supported yet?), and will
     it
     crash under heavy volumes?   Is it still buggy?

     Your experiences with the product would be most appreciated.

     Thanks,

     Shannon O'Donnell