Re: Modernizing

If you have RBD (Rational Business Developer) and not RDP (Rational Developer for Power) then you have the EGL tooling. EGL is one of the most powerful tools for developing web applications available. What's unique about EGL is that it lets you build applications either directly from your database using SQL, or by calling RPG business logic. It has fully WYSIWYG designers both for thin client and rich client applications, and an incredibly easy drag and drop process.

Real world example: we had an extract program that built a file, and then the users had to go into Excel and download the file. Not horribly hard, obviously, but there are various issues with users doing downloads directly from the database.

We built a web page that showed that data in a table that they could then right-click and export it directly into Excel (export to Excel is a built-in capability of IE). The time to create the page dumping the table? Four minutes. Bring up the tool, create an empty page. Add an SQL Record naming the file. Tell the tool to bring in the record definition. Define an array of those records to my web page. Drag it onto the screen (and in so doing change the column headings). Back into the web page, write one line of code: get myRecords.

Done.

That's just one real world example of the sort of development you can do in EGL.

And here's a little extra bonus: the SQL Record uses a standard database connection. That connection doesn't HAVE to be to the IBM i... it could be to any database server on your network. Imagine the possibilities, eh? :)

Joe

I am an old time RPG programmer and am currently using Webfacing for their
web development. Although this has been a pretty good tool for us, it has
its limitations. I am looking for some advice on what would be the best
tools to use to modernize their web development. I currently have RBD and
have some minor experience at Java. I do like the RPG language and would
like to continue to incorporate this in my web development.



Any advice?



Russell Kalchbrenner
IT Manager
Financial Management Services, Inc.
Web: www.fmsi-contractorscredit.com