Re: Microsoft .NET frontending IBM i -- WEB400

Writing a web service in RPG? I'm sure it can be done. Good luck with
that...
Generating a web service client in VStudio is easy if there are no wrinkles
at all. If there is anything outside the box of generated code then we see
finger pointing back to our web service that it does not work. Well, it
does work.

Thanks,
Todd Allen
EDPS
Electronic Data Processing Services
tallen@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Mike Wills
<mike@xxxxxxxxxxx
ame> To
Sent by: "Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries"
web400-bounces@mi <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
drange.com cc

Subject
2010-10-08 14:52 Re: [WEB400] Microsoft .NET
frontending IBM i

Please respond to
Web Enabling the
AS400 / iSeries
<web400@midrange.
com>

That would be a simple get data display data type thing. I would say the
same thing though. I could write a simple ASP.NET app quicker than I could
in RPG any day and I have 10 years of RPG under my belt and 4 years of a
project here and there in ASP.NET.

I think I can say that because of Visual Studio and how MS has setup the
ASP.NET tools. I can create a source file, drop a couple controls onto the
page, pass in a table, and format the logic in quick fashion. This is the
blessing (and curse) of ASP.NET. So on one hand you can do a real quick
CRUD
app in a very short period of time. However, a better designed app does
take
more time and more care than that.

--
Mike Wills
http://mikewills.me

On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 1:21 PM, <TAllen@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In fact I can write a new web service that talks to the iSeries in

about

20 minutes or less as well. Faster if I use my COMMON class examples :-)

On this point I must make a comment. You can create a web reference and
generate your code stubs pretty quick with Visual Studio. However, when
anything is slightly amiss with the generated code I have seen more than
one .NET developer throw up their hands and say that our web service is
broken. So much so that I had to delve into the C# code and show them

how

to do it.

I know this is a little off on a tangent, but saying you can write a web
service in 20 min. is quite a sweeping generalization.

Thanks,
Todd Allen
EDPS
Electronic Data Processing Services
tallen@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Richard Schoen
<richard@rjssoftw
are.com> To
Sent by: "web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx"
web400-bounces@mi <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
drange.com cc

Subject
2010-10-08 13:14 Re: [WEB400] Microsoft .NET
frontending IBM i

Please respond to
Web Enabling the
AS400 / iSeries
<web400@midrange.
com>

Concerning SQL server, yes, many times it will start out that they will

use

tables on DB2, but then they realize that their tools don't work as
seamlessly with DB2 as they do with MSSQL. And the creep of MSSQL starts
and before you know it there is a nightly push of table data from one DB

another.

Ah, not really true. As of V6R1 the database stuff is entirely

integrated

to Visual Studio. The drivers work all the way back to V5R1.

See for yourself. Come to the dark side :-)

Paranoia can destroy ya ......

You can also use and take advantage of CGIDEV2/IWS and I imagine

RPG-XML

services from ASP.Net so really all the service communications can be

done

via ASP.Net or by calling into the i.

Agreed. But why not just keep all that processing on IBM i with RPG

and

NOT have to double many of the things I originally mentioned.

Would you agree that having .NET (and corresponding servers) AND RPG

(and

corresponding servers) is more complex than just having one or the other?
That is the point I am trying to make - but a lot of people just dismiss
that as "the cost of doing business" and > >don't give it ample
consideration.

Deploying an IIS server is a little more complex, but it's also not

rocket

science. You can teach anyone to deploy an app on IIS in 60 minutes or
less :-)

In fact I can write a new web service that talks to the iSeries in about

minutes or less as well. Faster if I use my COMMON class examples :-)

Keeping the iSeries one layer back from the web can also be seen as a

good

thing. Using IIS or for that matter another iSeries or Linux server

keeps

the iSeries insulated and one layer back from the web.

Is that a good approach ? Depends on who you talk to. I actually like
keeping the iSeries one layer back whenever possible.

Of course that would all be entirely relative. Sure I could have 30

VMWare

instances to facilitate the same processing power of a larger IBM i, but
why would I want to? In my mind there is a blatant scaling issue when

you

can't scale by adding processing power to a single OS instance and

instead

need to spread it across many OSes. Smells like that platform wasn't

ever

really meant for what it was built for and it is now just a hyped

band-aid

process called VMWare. FWIW, you don't create an IBM i LPAR for the same
reasons you create a Windows VMWare, so I think your comparison is a bit
unbalanced.

Why isn't the LPAR reasoning the same ? Seems that way to me. I want an
isolated environment for whatever reason. In fact an LPAR is usually

just

a big disk image just like a Vmware image that shares system resources.
And isn't it called virtualization ? :-)

Please clarify......

Have you ever used Vmware in a real production environment ?

One server with several Vmware instances can do more than that server
could with a single OS instance. IE (LPAR) :-)

We have 10 VMware Server instances on a single Intel piece of hardware

and

it does much more than 10 individual servers could accomplish standalone.

You probably need to get familiar with the technology and use it in
production before bashing :-)

VMware is awesome and anyone who tells you different just hasn't used or
implemented it properly.

On a personal level I recently virtualized my 6 year old T40 to a laptop
that is 10 times faster than the T40 was. That's productivity gain !!

By disadvocating (Is that a word :-) ) Windows you're really setting

people up to try and live in a bubble that no longer exists, which is the
iSeries all by itself.

So are you saying you can't do an entire, and modern looking, business

application on IBM i using only RPG and CGI? Note I haven't started
talking about email servers and the like (which IBM i is terrible at btw,
unfortunately).

Sure you can if that's where you only skillset lies and you desire an all
iSeries approach and you're not comfortable with other platforms.

Bottom line is it comes down to comfort factor.

I am also a staunch i-only advocate when appropriate, but you seem to be
advocating i-and-only-I which is pretty one-sided.

Open your mind young grasshopper :-)

I guess in the end what I disagree with is that many think you NEED
Microsoft on the front end to produce nice looking modern applications in

timely manner for IBM i/RPG shops, and that simply isn't true.

We agree on this point as well. We have done production apps using

CGIDEV

along with Ajax, JSP and ASP.Net. They all work quite well and some work
on all iSeries and some do not.

Depends on what the customer needs or wants.

Regards,
Richard Schoen
RJS Software Systems Inc.
Where Information Meets Innovation
Document Management, Workflow, Report Delivery, Forms and Business
Intelligence
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web Site: http://www.rjssoftware.com
Tel: (952) 736-5800
Fax: (952) 736-5801
Toll Free: (888) RJSSOFT

------------------------------

message: 2
date: Fri, 8 Oct 2010 08:10:44 -0500
from: Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>
subject: [WEB400] Microsoft .NET frontending IBM i

I thought I would change the subject of the email since we have split

from

OT.

Concerning SQL server, yes, many times it will start out that they will

use

tables on DB2, but then they realize that their tools don't work as
seamlessly with DB2 as they do with MSSQL. And the creep of MSSQL starts
and before you know it there is a nightly push of table data from one DB

another.

In fact IBM has always proposed a 2 iSeries scenario when going to the
web

I would guess that is from the Websphere App Server folks - yes, I could
see why they would do two servers - they are from the same line of

thinking

as the Microsoft camp. You only need two servers if your High

Availability

requirements mandate it. Otherwise IBM is just looking to get more money
in their pocket.

You can also use Apache to host .Net just as easily as PHP, JSP, etc.

Yes, but not on IBMi unfortunately, unless you want to go the route of

Mono

- but I don't know if that is a place I want to go.

You can also use and take advantage of CGIDEV2/IWS and I imagine

RPG-XML

services from ASP.Net so really all the service communications can be

done

via ASP.Net or by calling into the i.

Agreed. But why not just keep all that processing on IBM i with RPG and
NOT have to double many of the things I originally mentioned.
Would you agree that having .NET (and corresponding servers) AND RPG (and
corresponding servers) is more complex than just having one or the other?
That is the point I am trying to make - but a lot of people just dismiss
that as "the cost of doing business" and don't give it ample

consideration.

ASP.Net scales probably just as well as the other methods you guys
have been throwing about. However I haven't done any millisecond
thread clocking :-)

Of course that would all be entirely relative. Sure I could have 30

VMWare

instances to facilitate the same processing power of a larger IBM i, but
why would I want to? In my mind there is a blatant scaling issue when

you

can't scale by adding processing power to a single OS instance and

instead

need to spread it across many OSes. Smells like that platform wasn't

ever

really meant for what it was built for and it is now just a hyped

band-aid

process called VMWare. FWIW, you don't create an IBM i LPAR for the same
reasons you create a Windows VMWare, so I think your comparison is a bit
unbalanced.

By disadvocating (Is that a word :-) ) Windows you're really setting

people up to try and live in a bubble that no longer exists, which is the
iSeries all by itself.

So are you saying you can't do an entire, and modern looking, business
application on IBM i using only RPG and CGI? Note I haven't started
talking about email servers and the like (which IBM i is terrible at btw,
unfortunately).

Interesting enough EXTJS works just as well and simply with RPG, PHP,

JSP

and ASP.Net. Keep evangelizing that because EXTJS is a cool framework.

Absolutely true! (glad we agree on something) What's even better is that

many cases you can go down to a more raw form of ASP.NET/PHP/JSP and not
include all the extra layers and still get excellent looking code that is
easy enough to maintain. For example, this program could have been
written in any *single* server side language just as easy:
http://red.rpg-xml.com/oru11/dspf/custmaint.html

I guess in the end what I disagree with is that many think you NEED
Microsoft on the front end to produce nice looking modern applications in

timely manner for IBM i/RPG shops, and that simply isn't true.

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/

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