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From: Jon Paris

On 5-Nov-07, at 12:01 PM, Joe Pluta wrote:

I'm not sure how to address the points made here, but let's see
what we can
do.

I'm not sure how I can respond either Joe since about 90% of what you
wrote appears to relate to some vision you must have had of me
speaking to you in the night or something - it certainly had little
to do with what I _actually_ wrote.

Actually, I was about to say the same thing about this last post. You seem
to be arguing against things I never said. Okay, there were some things I
did say, but you focused on things I never really said and sort of missed my
primary point.


For a start I didn't say PHP was better - in fact I said ZERO about
PHP.

I re-read that post several times, and I swear I don't see where I said that
you said PHP was better. I did compare EGL to PHP a couple of times because
on the i5 there aren't a lot of other even quasi-native solutions. There's
RPG-CGI, which we all know my feelings on, and PHP.

My point is that EGL is architecturally the best solution available of the
three, based purely on its technical merits. JSF is a standards-based user
interface, and now that we know that EGL runs on Tomcat, you can't even pick
on WAS anymore. The only issue is whether CGI is better than J2EE, and as I
said that's got nothing to do with EGL.


(By the way PHP added OO in 1999/2000 - half of its lifetime
ago - not that that is at all relevant)

Yeah, quibble time. The OO support in PHP 3 was horrendous, and didn't
support even basic concepts like abstract classes. It wasn't until it was
completely re-written for PHP 5 that it was even remotely usable, and that
was in 2004.


I didn't say evolution of a product was a bad thing - how could as
big an RPG advocate as I am possibly say so?

Cool. Just checking. I guess your calling the language an also-ran got my
hackles up a bit, since the System i integration capabilities of EGL seem to
be a lot stronger than any of its predecessors. A lot of this is because
the generated code is Java and it is designed to take advantage of the Java
Toolbox, which is one of the great pieces of open source software available
today.


The point I was making
(apparently badly) was that _every_ EGL predecessor has been marketed
to the System i community and each time it has been a miserable and
expensive failure for IBM.

Okay, I'll take your word for it. But I've been around for a long time and
I frankly never heard of CSP, and my first introduction to Visual Age was
Visual Age for Java. EGL is getting a LOT more push in the System i
community than I ever saw for its predecessors.


Of course EGL is a vast improvement - but
VAGen was a pretty darn good product in its time and it went nowhere
- I and others were on the road for months promoting that puppy.
Indeed even the venerable CSP itself was a pretty good product -
again in its time period.

I don't know if EGL will surpass VAGen, but I do know that if we've got
people like you, respected members of the community, characterizing it as
just another repeat of a failed experiment, then it's going to be that much
harder.


Also you are defending EGL (against someone who didn't attack it by
the way - merely voiced their opinion of its likely success/failure)
on the basis of how _you_ plan to use it. If IBM were selling it
that way I'd still have some reservations but not as many. But they
are not. They are selling it as the second coming - and certain
IBMers (you know who they are) are _still_ telling people it is an
RPG replacement. Not George Farr thank goodness but ...

Oh now you of all people should know there is no "IBM" in the sense of a
single vision. Yes, there are quite a few folks who think EGL can replace
RPG. But at the same time there are plenty of people (you know who many of
them are) that believe in the idea of EGL as a modernization tool for legacy
systems. The former people will have a long wait for EGL to replace
existing ERP systems, but the latter group is already seeing more and more
interest in the product. And my guess is that as the System i modernization
group starts producing revenues, their vision will probably receive a little
more attention. <grin>


I'm not getting into a debate on this - I expressed my own personal
opinion. Others will take it or leave it. My personal belief is
that EGL will attract some customers - probably more than its
predecessors, but it will not gain significant market share in the
System i community.

Hmmm. I think someone in your position, an acknowledged expert in the
field, has a responsibility to explain their positions. I'm sure you
realize it's not out of the realm of possibility to see a quote along the
lines of "Paris sees little future for EGL." But if you just want to drop
your opinion into the mix, I'm sure you don't begrudge me a little chance to
counterpoint it <smile>.


I would be delighted to be wrong - but I don't think I am.

Again, we'll see.

Joe


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