From: Aaron Bartell
There's also another article in the same issue entitled 'EGL and "i"'
that's an interesting read for the System i folks. ;)
After reading the article I can clearly say, Joe, you never ceased to
amaze
me how much you like to pull reactions out of people. Absolutely amazing.
[Shaking head]
Excerpt: "Simply put, using RPG as a CGI language is only warranted when
you
have no time or desire to ever learn any other language, and you have more
than enough power on your System i, and you don't mind opening your server
up to the Internet." - Joe Pluta
Why would you make such a statement?
Well, I say this stuff because I believe it, Aaron, regardless of the
current popularity of the position. I've taken some unpopular stands in the
past, if you'll remember. Like saying that WDSC is the best development
tool available. And I'll get grief for this position as well, because while
it's quite the in thing to take potshots at WebSphere and Java, there's a
small contingency of people who get up in arms when I point out that the
RPG-CGI emperor has no clothes. Oh well, you can't please everyone.
Also, on a personal note this crap about "pull[ing] reactions out of people"
is awfully disingenuous. You're complaining about ONE statement out of some
2000 words, even after I prefaced it with "I may get some folks ticked off
with the next statements, but if you look at them objectively, I think
you'll agree." You conveniently left off that bit, eh?
What about the entire rest of the article did you find non-factual, or
"reaction pulling"?
I write a lot of stuff, Aaron, and a high percentage of it is pure fact.
And even my opinion is based on my rather extensive experience in the field,
which I hope affords me some latitude in presenting 20 words of opinion in
2000 words of deposition. I hope you're not going to become one of those
sound-bite vultures who jumps on one of someone's sentences to try and prove
their point. There are plenty of those in this industry, Aaron, and frankly
I consider you to be intellectually superior to such pursuits.
Do you realize that you more than
piss of the exact same crowd you are trying to encourage to use EGL?!?!
Actually, I'm not. The only folks who get mad when I express my opinion
about RPG-CGI are the RPG-CGI advocates, and the folks who advocate RPG-CGI
are unlikely to ever use EGL. Yes, I'd like some RPG-CGI users to convert
to EGL because it will be better for them strategically, but the diehard
RPG-CGI folks are unlikely to be swayed by my logic <grin>.
But the diehards are not my audience. I'm looking at the moderates who have
been using RPG-CGI because it's the lesser of evils for them right now. Be
honest: even some people who use RPG-CGI don't like it, primarily because
RPG-CGI has no real tools for it. The best you can do is create a template
with an HTML editor, but that's a far cry from the WYSIWYG support of even
the simplest JSP editor, much less the powerful capabilities of EGL. Those
folks who are stuck in RPG-CGI because they've been scared off of Java and
WAS are the ones who might benefit most from EGL.
EGL fits those folks who don't want to use RPG-CGI or Java: they just want
to use the browser as a display device, and that's exactly what EGL
provides. A powerful WYSIWYG editor for the browser that can in turn be
used to call System i business logic written in RPG, using the same sort fo
linkages that we've always used.
I am not saying "pee perfume", which I am sure there is none of in your
bladder, but more that there are 101 different ways you could make a
similar statement and make people want to try what you are selling.
Oh pshaw. I've been politely saying RPG-CGI is a technological dead end for
years, but unlike the Java bashers and WebSphere whiners, I at least have
enough intellectual integrity to list the situations where I think RPG-CGI
works! Unfortunately, I still have to read posts from people touting
RPG-CGI as a superior technology. There's nothing superior about it. It's
a niche solution with several significant weaknesses.
Let's recap:
1. An RPG-CGI program can only run on a System i host, so can not be
offloaded to another server.
2. A server running RPG-CGI is by definition open to the Internet. It may
only be port 80, but even that opens you up for DOS attacks. At least it's
not running in PASE <grin>.
3. RPG-CGI requires templates which are never compiled. And unless you use
certain RPG-CGI helper tools, even the templates have to be parsed every
time.
The primary advantage of RPG-CGI? You don't have to learn another language.
Well, unless you consider the fact that you have to learn HTML, and CSS, and
JavaScript. And frankly learning those three is a lot harder than learning
the couple of opcodes you need for EGL.
The other advantage is that you don't have to have a Web Application Server,
but frankly that's a bit of a red herring, as Tomcat is no more difficult to
install and configure than Apache.
To me, RPG-CGI is a short-term solution for people who are strapped for time
and resources. And this is certainly a valid complaint, but to suggest it's
a superior architecture is to do a disservice to RPG programmers, who are
capable of handling things much more difficult than EGL (or Java, or PHP).
We do enterable subfiles. We know what matching record logic is. We've
done BOM explosions and MRP generations.
We're not afraid of a little EGL <grin>.
Joe
midrange.com
