Re: Increase IBM i Web Development Productivity With Generic Components?

Several incorrect jQuery and Renaissance assumptions there Henrik! It must be getting late. No garbage collection??

That aside, it is an interesting debate about whether or not a typical application has tons of "work with" functions. This is probably true of a green screen app, but not necessarily so in a browser based app. We have one which supports around 3900 concurrent sessions during a normal day (call centre agents for a cable tv company) and none of those users ever get to see a work-with/crud type interface (and yes they can launch several tabs without logging in again).

To be honest, I am not sure what we do is typical or representative of what the majority of companies are trying to achieve with web development on the ibmi. Our business is pretty much driven by applications that interface with legacy green screen applications on the back-end - so the customers don't want a GUI that is similar to what they already have - they want something that makes life easier, and doesn't take 2 weeks of training to be able to use. So I guess this is slightly different to porting/rewriting an entire green screen application. In other words, we are not in to porting or migrating existing apps - but rather bolting on alternative UIs to existing apps or writing new ones from scratch.



Sent from my iPad

On 13 Jan 2013, at 00:22, "Henrik Rützou" <hr@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Kevin & Paul



I agree that order entry and dash boards can't be built in the old fashion
way, but many typical IBM I applications has tons of "WORK WITH" programs
and my analysis shows that if you peel off the Menu System, the Work With
functions and the Command Prompt batch start functions you end up with very
few programs that has in some extend to be hand build.



So for me the trick is to make a line where I distinguish between when a
program can be produced and when a program must be hand coded or to quote
Einstein "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not
simpler." or in other words, since we have two methods that is to
produce/program programs we need to make the one simple enough to be
productive and broad enough to cover most done common functions.



This is an equation that is hard to do because if you want to increase “50%
produced” programs to “80% produced” programs you will in that process add
complexity to the already “50% produced” programs and you may lose what you
gain by lifting the bar either in unproductivity, steeper learning curve or
in other areas.



Besides that, there is no comparison in how my “work with” function works
to either how 5250 or Renaissance/WOW for that matter works since
powerEXT/EXT JS is OO orientated – in my QCUSTCDT demo you can launch
several new moveable update forms of any row without losing the grid in
background since the forms launched from the grid is new objects that has
their own “life”. From a technical point of view, here you have a serious
problem with JQuery since there is no garbage collection if the user
terminates an object.



Another thing I have noticed is the neither Renaissance nor WOW has tabs
and thereby is able to keep many functions active in the “air” at the same
time – they both actually works very 5250 alike where you need to signon
several times to have several session to accomplice the same – powerEXT can
hold any poserEXT function hot in the air – besides of course both
Renaissance and WOW ;-)



Go to my demo site at http://powerext.com launch you own apps in the menu
“Demo Cloud Applications” and launch any other app in the framework, they
runs nicely side by side in the viewport tabs.


On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 11:53 PM, Kevin Turner <kevin.turner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

wrote:

Paul

Renaissance doesn't use ExtJS (that is Henrik's PowerExt), but instead
uses jquery/jqueryUI. We already use that approach you outline for simple
configuration files and so on, but we no longer design applications that
follow a traditional iSeries "work with" approach - the aim is to develop
modern (hate that word) browser based applications, not to simply replicate
the green screen approach in a GUI. That said, a work with CRUD approach
still has a place for simple data file maintenance, but not for complex
order entry, dashboards, drag and drop UIs, tab dialogs, accordions etc

The example in the link below seems to work ok on my pc, but not so well
on my ipad - but I am surprised to find that it seems to use a standard
http request approach to page transition, rather than something that
provides a smoother user experience (like Ajax).

I guess it's a case of horses for courses, but to answer your question, we
don't really want to create subfile/work with applications with no
client-side JS. Quite the opposite in fact.

Rgds
Kevin

Sent from my iPad

On 12 Jan 2013, at 20:36, "Holm, Paul" <pholm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Henrik/Kevin,

Your approach of generic EXTJS UI components is good but why not leverage
SQL to define the business model AND UI grid JS object model? This

allows

subfile/work with type applications to be created instantly with no
client side JS.

For example:

select cusnum, lstnam, state, baldue from qiws/qcustcdt

This defines a generic "work with customers" grid.
You have a dynamic business object CUSTOMER with attributes CUSNUM,

LSTNAM,

STATE, BALDUE. The UI can generated based on the metadata of the
attributes.

The generic WORK WITH list of records is the #1 most developed pattern in
all of software development and with this approach the programmer

instantly

has WORK WITH screens for any of their database files.

Here is the development approach:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDuczx7Z6ng


This is an example CUSTOMER WORK WITH application:
http://www.planetjavainc.com/wowADDONDEV/runApp?id=185&_pj_lib=wowsamp
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http://powerEXT.com <http://powerext.com/>
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CoralTree Systems Limited
25 Barnes Wallis Road
Segensworth East, Fareham
PO15 5TT

Company Registration Number 5021022.
Registered Office:
12-14 Carlton Place
Southampton, UK
SO15 2EA
VAT Registration Number 834 1020 74.