Re: HTML and PDF Reports

David Gibbs wrote:

Joe Pluta wrote:

The primary complaint against EGL from the RPG-CGI advocates is that it's not RPG. I find this confusing, because with EGL, you don't have to learn HTML, JavaScript or CSS, but with RPG-CGI you have to learn all of those.

Of course without a good understanding of the generated code, trying to fix problems in the code is going to be a nightmare.

This is an argument you're going to have to decide for yourself. The program generates both Java code and JSF, so it's eminently debuggable. There's also an EGL-level debugger. See, this is opinion argument. You're not basing this on using the tool, just on... what? Your experience with other tools?

In my experience (granted, somewhat limited to a single vendor's product, but I have seen the output from other vendors tools), the code that is generated is horrendous and next to impossible to debug.

I guess you'd have to actually try to use the code. Since I use EGL primarily to move data from RPG to the web page, there's very little to debug.

Personally, I think code generators of any kind are a pox on the industry. Using a code generator might be OK for a prototype, but to create usable, maintainable, adaptable, applications you need to develop the code by hand ... or at least use a tool that emits the end result code so you have full code comprehension.

Obviously JMHO.

EGL emits JSF and Java and JavaScript. It's ugly, sure, but it's debuggable. If you haven't actually used EGL, then your arguments are theoretical.

Joe