Re: Application Diagram and Screen Designer demos available on line

John Taylor wrote:

What it boils down to is that WDSC was "sold" to us as the replacement for
Code/400 and VAJ, which in turn were supposed to replace SEU/SDA etc. At
each step of the way, development for the prior product essentially ceased.
I'd be more accepting of your argument if development had continued in full
force for the Code/VAJ/ADTS, but that's not the case. They did the bare
minimum maintenance on those products.

You'll need to take that up with IBM, because I just don't agree with most of your statements. For example, CODE/400 was never sold as a replacement for anything, certainly not to me. I know very few people who even used it, I never did. If I had to do display file work, I humbly admit I used SDA. And VAJ was never sold as an SEU replacement - it was pure and simple the best Java IDE on the planet at the time, but certainly not a 5250 application development tool.

WDSC was pushed, yes, but it was also given to you for free. Again, check the price of 5722WDS; nothing was ever pushed into that space for WDSC. And when the i5/OS tools were not part of Rational, it was even more problematic.

In any case, the new model unbundles user and compiler. Period. You have a choice between GUI and IDE. Period. So to say that you're being charged for something that you weren't charged for is technically true, but how do you expect them to continue to fund RDi development?

RDi is not a new product, it's a for-fee packaging of LPEX and RSE, which you were getting for free. It's really that simple. I think the reason they're making such a firm distinction between RDi and WDSC is so that it's absolutely clear tht RDi does not contain all of the RAD pieces of WDSC. You don't like it, I know, but it's the only model that makes sense. And that's really as far as I can go with this argument.

If you find it criminal, I suggest a lawsuit. Me, I'm more worried about what a "user" is, and that's where I'm going to spend my time.

Joe