Re: Windows vs i5/OS as a platform

From: Walden H. Leverich

Yes! When system-level problems like these occur you do get the
messages. But as systems get more complex that's not really a help at
times. If you've got a n-tier setup (as you're well familiar with) and
the web tier talks to the business logic which updates the database
which fires a trigger with hits a locked record you will get a message,
yes. But in what job? On what system? To debug these more complicated
systems we need better logging and that's usually in the form of some
sort of .log file system.

Eh, I see what your saying, but I still gotta disagree, Walden. I guess if
you're running a server farm with a highly distributed database in order to
meet scaling needs, you MIGHT not know where your business logic is running.
But for me, if I'm running a well-designed n-tier application with my
business logic running on a System i, any problems in business logic are
going to show up in the joblogs.

My presentation layer better not be presenting business logic problems. The
idea of a properly designed MVC system is that the presentation layer can be
designed, debugged and tested independent of the business logic. In fact, my
presentation layer ought to be so simple that I can write it in BASIC
<grin>. But I suppose if my programming staff is incapable of developing a
presentation layer, then I guess I could go with RPG-CGI, at which point I
again have all my errors in my joblog. (<SHIVER> Joe saying something GOOD
about RPG-CGI... gotta be COLD down there in Hades.)

All I'm saying is, would the joblog be nice on windows? Sure! But is the
lack of the joblog really a problem? No. You're going to get the same
level of information from a (properly implemented) logging system that
you'd get from the job log, if not more. Log4j (commons logging now?)
and Log4Net being the two that come to mind.

Ah, but herein lies the rub. You say "properly implemented" but that means
that the application programmer has to implement it. And it takes a good,
disciplined programmer to implement that level of error logging, and frankly
from what I've seen programmers are getting LESS disciplined, not more
disciplined.

That seems especially true in the web world. In fact, that's one of the
problems plaguing the poor folks over at MySpace: they aren't system
designers, and so they end up with lots of generic "server error" messages.

With i5/OS, "it's all in there." By that, I mean that the reporting is
already done. You can add application level logging with ease, but system
errors are always available.

Just the simple fact that a program will halt, tell the system operator, and
allow the programmer to do a STRSRVJOB and STRDBG to examine the process --
that simple feature has saved countless programmer days of debugging time.

Joe