"Free" vs "no extra charge", is splitting hairs IMO.
Without a doubt WDSc required more PC HP than 5250 emulation. That being said, I started with WDSc in 2006 on a 3 year old non-descript PC and it was perfectly functional. It didn't require a state-of-the-art high-end PC.
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Parkins [mailto:goodprophet.bp@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2018 4:37 PM
To: Rational Developer for IBM i / Websphere Development Studio Client for System i & iSeries <wdsci-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [WDSCI-L] RDi Lite (was Software fixes for older releases)
On 1/31/2018 8:54 AM, Jim Oberholtzer wrote:
That was the argument for WSCDi back in the day. Bundle it and they
will use it. Very few of us did. Now that RDi has its own revenue
stream, development on the product has increased exponentially and
along with it, usage.
Forgive my nostalgia as I recount my experiences with WDSc - and hopefully dispel an Urban Myth or two
WDSc was never free. It was bundled, (along with CODE/400) with ADTS.
Yes, we had some extra goodies for the price, but If we didn't have ADTS, we didn't have WDSc either. Or, put another way we couldn't obtain WDSc as a separate download for free or even on a limited trial.
This brings me on to further, but significant reasons why WDSc wasn't widely adopted initially.
1). WDSc was shipped on CD/DVD media. No downloads available. The media was shipped with all the other OS/400 software and never saw the light of day outside of the SysOps enclave. I know this because I employed WDSc extensively on the programming courses I taught at the time.
Developers would ask, "where can I get this tool?" I had to explain, "you already have it - check your software stack". For some, this was _the_ problem. The SysOps team were unaware they had some software that had to be rolled out on each individual workstation - not the AS/400.
They didn't know what to do with the WDSc media, so it got buried, lost or ignored.
To make the situation more difficult, the AS/400 + SysOps folk could be located in a different city/country to the developers. No chance of getting hold of the WDSc CD's. In extreme cases, the SysOps function was outsourced as well as remote. Absolutely no chance of getting the install media.
2). As has already been pointed out, at the time we needed some serious, high-spec. kit to run WDSc. This was at a time when most developers PC's were used primarily to run a 5250 emulator. Providing adequate hardware to run WDSc was a serious cost issue for many sites, (sound familiar?).
Technology marches on and today we would laugh at the spec./costs involved. Check the WDSc archives; for example, check out Buck's comments back in 2003:
https://archive.midrange.com/wdsci-l/200208/msg00079.html
More recently Buck asked,
"If we go back through the multiple discussions that have occurred here and tot up the various reasons for non-adoption, what has changed to alter the situation?"
I suggest the biggest changes have been the shifts in awareness, attitude and availability. The product has been around long enough for a majority of developers to know of it, want to use it and have access to trial it. In my experience, the Big Obstacle now is convincing those who hold the purse-strings to cough up the funds. I find that RDi now suffers a (perceived) cost issue - not with the hardware, but with the software itself. The suggestion of an RDi Lite might be one way to get around the problem.
Apologies for banging out the same tune!
Brian.
midrange.com
