I just can't see how one could think that what EGL has is better than what
RPG has with DDS (concerning hidden architecture). The difference in
simplicity between what's required to build a screen in RPG/DDS vs.
EGL/HTML/CSS/Javascript is quite different IMO.
The correct architecture (which as far as I know we've all agreed on for
some 15 or 20 years now) is to use RPG to build your business logic and then
attach it to your UI using some sort of SOA attachment.
What? You padding those years a little? Hasn't one of RPG's strength's
been creating UI's that are fast to use and only in the past few years
(let's say 6 to 8) it has gotten a lot of scrutiny because of it's archaic
look?
But the business logic should be entirely UI agnostic, and that's what EGL
does for RPG. Even green screen programs should be written so that the UI
doesn't have business logic in it, right?
Not telling you anything new here, but separating UI from BL has really been
very accessible since the introduction of RPGILE, and that was V3R2 right?
It has simply been "unknowing RPG programmers" that develop with everything
(i.e. UI/controller/BL/DAO) built into a single mainline program.
Multithreading, for one.
As I understand it from my in-person conversation with Barbarra Morris, this
is simply making RPG thread safe more than anything. So in my mind this
isn't really a feature to write home about. One of the thing Steve clamors
for is program meta data which would do wonders for being able to create
some very interesting tooling that is RPG centric.
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 2:43 PM
To: 'Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: [WEB400] EGL and other things
From: Aaron Bartell
those initiatives have died (i.e. EXUI opcode or something like that)
EXUI is gone at least in part because it's a bad idea. RPG is a business
language, not a UI language. It has never been a UI language. Even 5250
was a graft; it required a completely different language (DDS), special
opcodes and a powerful dedicated client machine (the 5250).
The correct architecture (which as far as I know we've all agreed on for
some 15 or 20 years now) is to use RPG to build your business logic and then
attach it to your UI using some sort of SOA attachment. Web services, data
queues, RPC, I don't care. But the business logic should be entirely UI
agnostic, and that's what EGL does for RPG. Even green screen programs
should be written so that the UI doesn't have business logic in it, right?
Given your love for RPG, can you say you have heard cool things coming
down the pipe for that language?
Yeah. Multithreading, for one. Ought to make Steve happy. I think I heard
that you will be able to pass files between procedures, which could make for
some very interesting encapsulation capabilities.
But be clear, I'm not an IBM employee. I know a lot about EGL because I am
one of a group of business partners who work closely with the EGL team. I
don't work with the compiler team the same way, so I don't know what the
specific future of RPG holds. I can tell you though what I know from
discussion with various IBM officials, and RPG and i5/OS are both still
strategic. A bunch of us just met with Marc Dupaquier, and while I'm under
NDA on the specifics of the discussions, I can guarantee you that i5/OS is
still a major part of the future.
Joe
midrange.com
