Re: Pete's web5250 was->Re: Business Developers was ->Re: IBM Gives RPG Devotees Their Own Café

From: Niels Liisberg
One idea ... is to convert the 5250 stream on the fly to
JSON and create a super thin java-script client ...

Yes. Build a short data stream that a JavaScript client can parse & render as DOM input/output elements at runtime. R=5, C=10 could mean row 5, colum 10, for example. That would be much less verbose than complete HTML pages generated on the server and sent to the browser.

we like to calling reverse AJAX

AJAX is esoteric enough - then you go and "reverse" it. The name could be a problem. But I like the idea ;-)

By using JSON it will ultimately gives you the possibility
to enhance the 5250 stream by joining extra attributes/values
with user exits program.

Yes. Exit points on the server are a good extension of the idea.

Screen scraping on steroids ... does it make sense guys?

There's only so much you can do with a 5250 data stream, but I'd be interested in integrating something like this into my portal. I like the idea of a thin JavaScript client over a thick 5250 applet + JVM runtime, for example.

If you're considering using the IBM i virtual terminal interface, I have a lot of plumbing in place for launching a virtual terminal servers, and communicating between browsers and the virtual terminal servers, if that would be any help.

I figure you'll be using Icebreak ...

Either way, I'd be interested in integrating your JavaScript client into my portal.

Nathan.