Re: The responsive web site debate -- WEB400

Love your work, Kevin. Keep it up.

I've also come up against the issue of missing a good ORM for Node. Would
be intriguing to see if we could fork Waterline and make it work with the
driver IBM has provided.

Aaron Bartell

On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 10:08 AM, Kevin Turner <
kevin.turner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My well intentioned (I promise) email about using a nodeJS solution on the
IBMi seems to have been immediately side-tracked into a debate about
whether or not this is the correct forum. Oh well....

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mark
Murphy/STAR BASE Consulting Inc.
Sent: 13 July 2015 12:22
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: [WEB400] The responsive web site debate

Seems to me that if IBM i is being used to serve these applications, this
is the correct place to discuss them. While the technologies are
essentially platform agnostic, particularly the part that is running on the
client, there are pieces of the server side that are largely specific to
IBM i, for example DB2 for i. Besides, if we kick out these discussions we
are intentionally diminishing the IBM i community. If we really want IBM i
to be viewed as a modern server, which it is, we need to be discussing
modern technologies in these lists. IBM i does have a modern UI, it runs in
a browser, and we are discussing it here. So what if the technology is
platform agnostic.

Mark Murphy
STAR BASE Consulting, Inc.
mmurphy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: -----
To: "Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)" <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 07/12/2015 11:57AM
Subject: Re: [WEB400] The responsive web site debate

It seems to me if we're going to build web sites and hybrid apps that use
DB2 data and/or programs on an IBM i, we need to know our options for
developing the front ends of those sites and apps. HTML, CSS and JavaScript
have become de facto web standards for the front end. Responsive web sites
and single page apps (not the same thing) are two options we have for the
front ends or web sites and hybrid apps that are different than traditional
web pages for desktop browsers.

When we use PHP on the IBM i to develop a responsive web site, are
questions having to do with the responsive front end of that web site
questions for WEB400? When we use Java or the Integrated Web Services to
create a RESTful services that pulls DB2 data into a single page app, are
questions about the single page app on the front end suitable for WEB400?
What about when we try to create a hybrid mobile app using HTML, CSS,
JavaScript or Cordova? None of these are IBM technologies. But the IBM
Mobile First\Worklight initiative has made Cordova a central tool for
developing mobile apps. Are questions about the HTML, CSS or JavaScript
code inside a Cordova hybrid app proper for WEB400?

I really like the Midrange.com lists, and I'm happy to play by the rules.

So here's my question:

Is WEB400 an appropriate forum for discussing the front ends of all the
web sites and mobile apps we are building?

Or is WEB400 only appropriate for the back ends of those web and mobile
technologies (web servers, server-side scripts, CGI programs, web services,
RESTful services, etc.) when those back ends are running on an IBM i?

Thanks,
Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Henrik
Rützou
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2015 5:29 AM
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: [WEB400] The responsive web site debate

Kevin

You are quite right, WEB400 or any other IBM i specific forum/groups
isn’t the right place to discuss either SPA or web client frameworks.
This will tend to be discussions between very few people where any web
client framework has their own specific forums/groups that seldom are
server centric or specific.

I use EXT JS and am a member of a cross server platform group specific to
EXT JS and HTML5. Most of the members is PHP or .NET guy’s but we are
also
4 IBM i ISV’s that participates and we meet much more regular that
any IBM i user group.

There are clear advantages to participate in other groups, they are Front
End related, they are able to attract experts on the technology and
frameworks they cover and they widens ones network of people with a common
technical preference outside the IBM i frame.

In regards to their main forums there is however a drawback. There are
many people in them (up to 500.000) so the coziness and the personal
relations we experience in IBM i forums are gone and it is very hard to get
answers on ‘newbie’ questions or personal guidance to specific
problems.

With all due respect for Kelly and Nathan’s interesting discussion I
have been following on the side line I personal don’t think it is the
right path. They use hours to try to set up a simple SPA homepage you are
able to make in WordPress in two hours. But more important –
WordPress creates applications that is content management not business
applications. Kelly and Nathan are playing with the same – simple
content management, while
90-95 % of a business application is handling menu’s, grid’s
and form’s that has to interact with each other and services on the
server. To me that’s a whole other ballgame.

But that is another discussion – e.g. are the IBM i suitable for
running CMS and business applications side by side even though it can?

On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 11:11 AM, Kevin Turner <
kevin.turner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Oh, and it also uses web sockets to communicate with the nodeJS server
as well as HTTP.

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kevin
Turner
Sent: 12 July 2015 10:03
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: [WEB400] The responsive web site debate

"How would Bootstrap be an improvement?"

I didn't really see an answer to this question, and as I had no real
practical experience of bootstrap I decided to have a go at a
prototype that used it so that I can judge for myself. This topic is
not really anything to do with the IBMi platform, it is more to do
with general web design and tooling - perhaps WEB400 is not the right

forum?

Anyway, one of the things we want to do pretty soon is have a platform
agnostic solution - something that we can run on the IBMi and any
other platform (Unix, Windows) if it is appropriate. So as well as
trying out something that used bootstrap, I also wanted to try
something that used a nodeJS server solution rather than Apache.
While I was at it, I might as well get some practical experience of
Angular as well, so that I can really compare it with our own

Renaissance 6 Framework.

So this is the opposite end of the spectrum. Nathan is rather "anti"
frameworks and libraries as they can be allegedly over scoped. This
little prototype at http://kpturner.co.uk:1337 will therefore fill him
with horror, because I have used Angular, Bootstrap, JQuery and a
NodeJS server
- all glued together with a Framework called Sails (sailsjs.org). I
haven't created any documentation for it at the moment - it is just a
proof of concept really so that I can get to understand what all these
libraries have to offer. However, the source can be viewed on github (
https://github.com/kpturner/sails_events). As an aside, we are now
using Git on our IBMi to manage all our source code, RPGLE etc included.

I haven't reached any hard and fast conclusions yet. I have had plenty
of problems trying to fathom out the best way to do things, mainly due
to my lack of experience in the tools/libraries. I would definitely
consider using bootstrap in Renaissance, but Angular (so far) I find

less intuitive

than our own offering (no surprise there then). What really is exciting
(can't believe I am using that word in this context) is the use of
nodeJS as the server platform. JavaScript is by far my favourite
language, so being able to write the server-side code in JavaScript is
liberating. I can debug using node-inspector, and have access to all
those node goodies (node-machines included).

The only fly in the ointment so far, with regard to running it on the
IBMi, is the database access. This prototype uses MySQL. The SailsJS
framework uses an ORM called Waterline that provides an integration
layer to lots of different databases, but DB2 isn't one of them. That
is a hole that I intend to fill one way or another.

Anyway, I thought I would share my experiences as well as making
Nathan feel nauseous :)

Kevin

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nathan
Andelin
Sent: 07 July 2015 20:07
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: [WEB400] 7 lessons from my first responsive web site

Aaron,

Yes, I've already read about Bootstrap's "grid" options and played
with them on one project. But I'd like to hear about some practical
examples of people using them, to better understand what might be
entailed. My understanding, which is admittedly limited, is that
developers may select from "extra small", "small", and "large" CSS
classes for HTML elements. CSS Class names indicate whether they are
targeted for use with various screen sizes. But what is "responsive"
about that? What about GUI elements that automatically adapt to screen

sizes?

Kelly's site demonstrated the use of "media queries" which
automatically toggle the visibility of a "menu bar" for larger screens
or an optional "drop-down" menu for smaller screens. How would Bootstrap

be an improvement?

On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 12:48 PM, Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>>

wrote:

*>For those who advocate for Bootstrap, what does it really take to

make it adapt to multiple screen sizes?*

Check this out: http://getbootstrap.com/css/#grid-options

Aaron Bartell

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