RE: RE: PHP Support Coming for iSeries! -- WEB400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On
> Behalf Of Jon Paris
> 
>  >> And using RPGIV as a CGI language? fergiddaboutit!
> 
> However - I don't understand this comment.  Having looked at 
> smarty, I can't
> see any significant differences between it and CGIDEV2 et al 
> - which I would
> call from RPG.  Any language can be used as a scripting language with
> appropriate support and CGIDEV2, RPGsp, RSP, Cozzi's xTools, 
> Brad's tools,
> etc. etc. supply that.
> 
> Turn it around and I might ask, since my existing logic is in RPG why
> _wouldn't_ I continue to use it?
> 
I'm very comfortable with programming in RPGIV and when given an opportunity to 
use it as a CGI language with CGIDEV2 I felt the same as you, it made sense.  
Then I spent some of the most frustrating weeks of my life getting the html and 
the rpg to stay in sync.  This was the only time I have ever felt like the 
technology needed for my chosen profession was getting away from me and I still 
dread any thought of having to go back and do any maintenance to what I have 
done already.  

Just recently I had an opportunity to try out PHP while developing a form entry 
and file maintenance program for a non-profit on a non-AS400 site.  I had that 
sucker up and running in less then a week (mind you I had never used PGP 
before) using only my evenings (still had a regular job).  I could read and 
write directly without the use of those silly block labels (or whatever they 
were called, my mind has thankfully blocked out most of that earlier 
experiment) and I never lost track of my variable values (something that was 
always happening with CGIDEV2). 

Admittedly the PHP project was much less involved then the CGIDEV2 one, but 
what was giving me trouble wasn't the size of the project so much as the basic 
understanding of the CGIDEV2 concept. If it clicks for you then fine, and I 
envy you,  but I felt like it would have been easier to learn a brand new 
language then to try to shape the one I did know to do something it wasn't 
originally intended to do. 

<OPINIONATED DIATRIBE>
BTW: what is the reasoning for creating in-house enterprise level web programs 
when there is a perfectly good, secure piece of hardware/software combination 
that will do it easier, directly, and more securely?  I can see it for 
communications with customers and other external entities, as they don't have 
direct access to the data-server but for our users that do?  And even if our 
users/employees are so attention-deficient that they can't handle text screens, 
there are a number of utilities that can be used to GUI-fy the AS/400 screens.  
I would even be glad to pass out pacifiers with them as well.
</OPINIONATED DIATRIBE>

Don "soon to be a dinosaur" Freeman