Remote System Explorer

[J.Pluta]

I think it really depends on what you're trying to do, Bill. RSE is not intended to be used for visual screen or print design. Since the push from IBM is away from green screens, I don't think there are a lot of dollars being spent on that functionality, either. CODE/400 is a much better tool for screen design. As for programming RPG, I won't go into a comparison with vendor products, but here are some fo the benefits of RSE: You can see 40-60 or more lines of code depending on your monitor. You can have multiple windows open simultaneously. Each window can be a different language. The windows are all color coded for the appropriate language. You can cut and paste between windows. You can use ctrl-space to auto-complete things (very helpful in looking up field names!). You have immediate online help in the form of tool tips (great for BIFs), not to mention the full RPG manual. The verify command is very fast, and finds all your errors. Errors can be inserted into the editor at the point they occur. For me, the ability to be able to see a CL, an RPG and a Java routine all up at the same time is crucial to my programming ability. There are other features as well; the debugger kicks butt and the ability to set a service entry point is nothing short of amazing. But once again, it's up to you and to some degree depends on the job you're doing. I still occasionally sneak into PDM for quick changes, especially DDS. PDM is great for user defined commands on multiple members, and is still the better tool for finding strings in files. And even though I prefer CODE over SDA, sometimes SDA is just quicker. That may be because I do very little green screen design. I would say that in general, I've been programming probably 95-98% of the time in RSE (I spend under an hour a week in PDM). Joe

[awalker@acom.com]

RSE is the Cats Meow and the Lion's, Well what ever they do too!! RSE is the best thing to happen to the Iseries in a long time!!. It is easy to use and a quick and easy way to relate the development environment with other language's IDEs. If fact learning wdsc makes you a little bit of an eclipse expert. Hey guess what, that leads to java and other languages that use more graphically based development environments! Sooner or later we have to realize that our old green screen tools are just no longer sufficient for the brave new world of programming. Bill open wdsc right click the on the dds source memmber and select open with code designer. If you do not have this option you need to install code400 on the your pc along with wdsc. Once you open that dds source in code designer GOODBYE SDA!! Welcome to the world of WDSC and Code Designer!! TRUST ME YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE IT!! Aric Furtune Favors the Bold

[Guest.Visitor]

I read Joe's posting which agrees with the official IBM line that the debugger is the best ever. I'm not an RPG programmer, so I'm not sure I'm using the correct terminology. But I talk to my staff and they tell me that the debugger is a giant step backward when compared to the interactive debugger that was available for the old RPG on the green screen. They complain of several problems... - Inability to debug RPG OPM programs (We live in a world where some of our vendors have upgraded to RPG/ILE but most have not. So we can't just upgrade it all when we need to test something.) - Inability to let a program run until, say, it gets to the a particular customer# and then set up our breaks. - Problems with getting the debugger service program to work consistantly. Sometimes it works for us, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it crashes. I'd be happy to learn that these are "training issues" or "user error". But we had an IBMer come out and train us for 3 days. He showed us a lot of cool things with freeform, service programs and the like but he never could show us anything usefull on the debugger.

[Necqui]

I am not sure if many iSeries programmers know about this debugger. It comes with iSeries Access for Windows and can be accessed from iSeries Navigator or the shortcut below. It loads faster and has a much better response time than the one in RSE. Create a shortcut on your desktop with the following command... "C:Program FilesIBMClient AccessJREBinjavaw.exe" -cp "C:JTOpenLib es.jar";"C:JTOpenLibjt400.jar";"C:Program FilesIBMClient AccessJRELibjhall.jar" utilities.Debug -u ISeriesUserID -s iSeriesName Change the path with .jar files to point to the location on your client (search your Client Access folder) and substitute ISeriesUserID and iSeriesName with yours. Necqui Teja

[B.Morris]

MFAULHABER wrote: > > - Inability to debug RPG OPM programs (We live in a world where some of our vendors have upgraded to RPG/ILE but most have not. So we can't just upgrade it all when we need to test something.) Try compiling your OPM programs with OPTION(*LSTDBG) or OPTION(*SRCDBG).

[J.Pluta]

As Barbara says, you can debug OPM programs by using the correct compiler switch. If you right click on a breakpoint, you can edit its properties. In RPG, you can have it break on a specific iteration, or when an expression is true. You can use the latter technique to break on a customer. As to the debugger service program, I never have problems. Have you documented the crashes and submitted them to IBM? The WDSC team is perhaps the most reponsive software team I've ever worked with. If you get a crash, either post it here or on the WDSCI-L mailing list at midrange.com. Joe

[Guest.Visitor]

in wdsc's help we found examples of valid line breakpoint expressions for C++. But we can't find an example of a valid expression in RPG. We've tried a number of variations. But none of the ones we've tried evaluates out as true. (Even when we know that it should, if we were specifying the expression correctly.)

[J.Pluta]

Sure. Use the attached program. If you put a breakpoint on the statement "x = 0;" and then debug the program, you'll hit the breakpoint three times. Right-click on the breakpoint and select Edit Breakpoint. In the resulting wizard, go to the second panel and type "x = 2" (no quotes) into the Expression field. Debug again and the program will only stop once, and the value of x will be 2. Joe

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Code

[Guest.Visitor]

I have done this accidently, but can't figure out what I did... and in a large program with mismatched if/ends, this would be helpful. How do you collapse if/end loops in RSE?

[Guest.Visitor]

Right click in the source code, select Filter View, select Control. Chris