Re: Trial for RDi SOA

Jim Steil wrote:

Is there a way to see how the front-end of this was developed? Is EGL a code generator where you just drag-n-drop controls onto your page? I ask out of my ignorance of what EGL offers for front-end development and because I took a peek at the source behind this page and see that it is about 15,000 lines of javascript code. I'm assuming that was auto-generated for you somehow. Also, I think statements like "No gimmicks, no Java required, and it's better than any PHP or .NET application (and a lot easier to write, especially *real* back end processing)" are a bit over the top. This may be true give your experience (which is very well respected), but for web development I don't believe there is only 1 true path to success.

You can go to the alphaWorks site to download the technology preview for the rich client GUI. There's a link right on the opening screen, but I'll include it here.

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/reglrws

As to being over the top, why do you say that? I've heard a gazillion statements more outrageous than this about .NET being the one true environment, and PHP being the next great language for the i. Pshaw, I say. Languages like that are fine for web applications that don't require anything more sophisticated than a storefront. The problem is when you need real sophisticated business logic, because none of them easily attach to an RPG back end. The best most of them do is via stored procedures, which frankly are a pretty limited interface.

With EGL, you can pass entire *bidirectional* data structures between the user interface and the RPG back end; in fact, you can even pass them through a web service. All without coding a line of Java or creating an XML document or any of that. The worst you have to do is send someone a WSDL file, and even that file is auto-generated by the tool. And the speed is phenomenal. When you get a list of sessions in a track, that's performing dozens of calls to RPG to get the various bits of information about the tracks, such as the votes and the tags and the comments. And yet it's sub-second response, or close to it, even over the Internet. That's pretty impressive.

Anyway, we can disagree about which is the true path to success; it really depends on your business. You know me, I always say use the best tool for the job, and you may have reasons to choose some other path. But theoretical arguments won't solve anything. This is a concrete example, and I think it sets the bar pretty darned high. I challenge anyone to do what Chris and I have done using PHP or .NET. Remember, all the data is on the i. We even have event logging to a database file.

I guess my point is, if you can do this with EGL and RPG this easily, then you need a strong argument as to why you would use anything else.

Joe