Re: Impressions of EGL - Part Duex

Pete Helgren wrote:

Taking the EGL tour has, so far, been helpful. I might just use EGL in the interim as a web services integration tool and then slowly move my applications to use the UI tools later. I'll learn more about that in a couple of weeks when I finish the course.

Pete, have you tried creating a web service with EGL? That's definitely something that ought to make a light go on. Using EGL to expose RPG business logic as web services, and then testing those services with the built-in Web Services Explorer, is quite productive.

Then when you decide to do your UI research, you have to look at the Rich Web Services technology. That's what we used for the RSDC scheduler. That's what will take your applications to a level that is pretty much at the very cutting edge of today's web technologies.

I do find it interesting though that you note there's nothing there you couldn't do yourself. Have you tried dropping a field or a record or an array of records onto a web page? The fact that the data from the EGL fields is automatically passed to the page with no work on your part, that's what I find lacking in any tagging approach, be it JSP or CGI. In the other techniques, you have to specify the linkage; with the JSF tooling in EGL it's automatic. I've done JSP for years, and even though beans make it a little easier, it's definitely lacking the auto-binding of EGL and JSF. And of course there's nothing like it in any of the CGI approaches.

Also, RBD and RDi can be co-installed. In fact, that's what IBM calls "RDi-SOA"; it's the two products in the same workbench.

Have you taken any of the distance learning courses from Jon Sayles? From what I understand those classes are really quite excellent.

Joe