Keeping Applications on the AS/400?

[Guest.Visitor]

Has anyone tried ASNA's visual RPG product? It is similiar to Visual Basic in appearance, but it has its own database and the code is designed to ease someone with traditional RPG experience into a visual environment. We have tried it for PC applications and liked it. We are now toying with the idea of using it on our Netfinity Server for all of our applications. We want to keep our data on the AS/400, but use VRPG for our programs on NT and have it access the date through a pipeline to the AS/400. How feasible it this? Is anyone using Visual RPG, Visual Basic, or any other 'PC' based language, but actually keeping the data on the AS/400? Does it work well? Let me know the pros and the cons.

[B.Myrick]

Forest, I have not actually had a client who pulled all of the programs off of the 400 and ran them on NT, although some specific applications are written as such, just not everything. You can't really knock ASNA's V/RPG package. It is stable, has some good routines and is backed by a fine name both in company and owner. So I say, "Why not?" The only problem I can see is that if the server is down, then you have problems. This is true with anything, but lans/wans have a habit of dropping quite often or the phone lines are down or whatever. It really depends on you situation as to what is best for you. ASNA's founder, Dave Ferguson, has several patents in the field, including some that have something to do with binary-tree searching. If memory serves me, he has the second patent awarded in our field, along those lines. Take a bow Dave. You too, Ann (pronounced Ahhn). Ann's his very, very British wife. Never met the folks, but I've been using ASNA products since 1984. They developed a package called RPG/III for the S/34 and S/36. Gave me structured op codes and calls and parms and all kinds of good things long before IBM made them available on the s/36 with ssp 4.0. Got a good history and am sure they have a bright future ahead of them. Later, Bret Myrick

[G.Gaunt]

I tested both Asna's Visual RPG and IBM's VARPG. I disliked Asna's code editor, I liked IBM's LPEX editor a lot, and decided to go with IBM's version. Asna's development environment shares a single menu bar across all windows. If you maximize the code window, the menu bar is hidden. That confused me. Asna's code editor allows stretch columns and scroller arrows in individual factor 2 and result fields to reveal long property suffix names in Visual Basic style. Seeing these little scroller arrows all over the code annoyed me. IBM's VARPG avoided the stretch columns problem altogether by inventing new opcodes to work with properties (oops, "attributes"). I liked that. And the LPEX editor (from CODE/400) is great. CODE/400 is wonderful. Get it.

[Guest.Visitor]

We're using VARPG and the major problem we have found is that very few shops are using it and almost no software developers are using it to build application software. Feedback from other users is hard to come by. ASNA has thousands of customers using the product and over 200 software vendors using it to build enterpise applications.

[Guest.Visitor]

We've been using IBM's VARPG for a few months and as far as the language goes we like it very much. We are currently using a thick client model rather than using the JAVA conversion code that it can create for a browser. It works slick. Our biggest issue is one of deploying the software, maybe we are expecting too much, but I think there should be some easier answers of getting the software to the users. It sure seems like the best of both worlds, using the PC for the graphical interface, with all the advantages of a centralized database on the 400. If IBM's marketing division would put some effort into it, it would spread like wildfire.

[Guest.Visitor]

Kevin You hit the nail on the head. IBM needs to give the AS400 a complete GUI and VA RPG should be the IDEEditor. We all need to keep presenting this to ANY IBM resource until they understand how they are missing a golden opportunity.

[Guest.Visitor]

I have a conference call with an IBM er that wants feedback from us. If you would like to join in here is the info. (Sorry for the short notice, I just read a previous Email that said I could invite others.) Invitation - AS/400 GUI Discussion Conference Call-in # 1-800 -475-8422 Pass Code # 27377 (31 May 10:00 AM CDT 11:00am EST) Norb Poch & Joe DiCecco will be the IBMers