Re: RDi and Linux

Joe Pluta wrote:

Buck wrote:

I can tell you I will absolutely not be paying $800US for the privilege of editing RPG code at home (Windows XP SP3.) WDSC is not $800US nicer than Code/400, and RDi has fewer features than WDSC.

You've got your opinion Buck.

Which is what this thread was trying to elicit, no?

But I did want to point out some facts: as far as green screen editing goes, RDi has more features than WDSC, not less.

What, the Application Diagrammer (still a work in progress), the screen designer technology preview phase 2 or the ability to debug RPG varying variables? http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/rdi/about/?S_CMP=wspace

For hobby programming of non-web apps, RDi seems rather much.

I don't know what you mean by hobby programming. I program all the time, some of it billable, some of it not, but it's all about learning new things. I don't know that I consider that a hobby. My garden is a hobby, my music is a hobby. Programming is my career.

You may have to take my word (I wouldn't lie to you Joe) that programming antenna rotator control software on a PIC 18F microcontroller in assembler doesn't have much in the way of overlap with writing routines to age invoices for an aged trial balance in RPG. I understand your intentions when you note that programming is your career, but some programming is quite inapplicable to what I get paid to do at work, and that programming is what I mean when I say 'hobby.'

I gave Eclipse a try at home for Python, Java, C and some PIC development, but it's quite a large footprint and for the most part codeedit.exe does virtually everything I need.

Eclipse is a large footprint? That's something of a minority position these days. My installation of Eclipse 3.3. is about 170MB. iSeries Access is 230MB, Paint Shop Pro is 270MB, Open Office is 311MB. Heck, the Java 5 SDK is 283MB. Visual Studio is 2.3GB, and the MSDN library is another 2GB.

I understand your point - modern PC software is big. But that's my point, too. I don't need another big package (who has a bare Eclipse 3.3 without any other add-ins?) that works slower than codeedit, is more difficult to use than codeedit (multiple editor personalities in Eclipse) and has a complex macro-substitute system (unlike codeedit's elegant REXX macros.)

If I ever get to the point where I run my own web server (unlikely) I might look at Eclipse harder, but I won't be paying the retail price (what, $1995US?) for RDi-SOA for what is essentially hobby work.

That makes sense to me. I wouldn't be paying two grand for a hobby. Well, okay my Kurzweil K-2500 cost a little more than that when I bought it, but I was single and carefree <grin>. But again, I have some confusion over the term "hobby work". If you're not planning to use EGL as a core component in your modernization strategy, then I agree that RDi-SOA makes no sense.

Right. There is exactly zero chance that our web guys will throw out everything they've done in .NET and switch over to EGL. Zero. Any web programming I do that is not .NET will be incompatible with what the web team here uses, and so will be a hobby for me. Fun to do, fun to learn but no benefit to my paid professional career.

> But the decision to use RDi or ADTS (both of

which cost the same) is a no-brainer to me.

We will be entitled to 8 seats of ADTS. How many seats of RDi will we be entitled to? My understanding (confirmed several times) is zero. That meant they do not, in fact, cost the same. For the Linux people, will they get a free (as in beer) version of RDi for Linux? All their other software tends to be free...

I haven't used SEU in weeks, and while there are occasionally things I need in PDM, it's getting rarer and rarer.

Nor have I. But of the 8 developers here, only 2 use WDSC. The rest use SEU/PDM exclusively. Once again, from the perspective of 'how important is RDi on Linux,' the answer is there is no interest whatsoever from our company in Rational spending one penny on that development.

I very much want to use RDi. I've been using IBM PC-based development tools since the OS/2 days of Code/400. I'll probably be forced off it soon and that makes me just a bit sour. Asking me at this moment in time if I would like to see IBM port it to a platform I can't use at work is definitely going to elicit my opinion against the notion.
--buck