Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

Joe said: "Uh, where does THIS information come from? As far as I know there are a whole bunch of web sites using SQL Server" Count my company as one who use MS IIS and SQL Server. We get approximatly 80k unique visitors a day. The web site hardly sweats. Of course, the use of Akamai helps in the process. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

At my last employer we ran World on AS/400. Our weekly check run took about 6-8 hours of processing. It was about 30,000 checks per week. When we moved to One World the process ballooned up to about 24 hours of processing. It was a mess that never improved. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "Dan Stephens" wrote in message news:6b2091d0.33@WebX.WawyahGHajS... > "As an update JDE One World is not developed using RPG but with a 4GL tool. Asks a Denver insider, and they will tell you that they have been doing this since 1996 the birth of our beloved ILE RPG IV." - TonyT > > That's probably why JDE One World runs so poorly on the 400. It doesn't take advantage of the native I/O but does it all through SQL, and does that poorly since it doesn't seem to understand how the 400 handles indexes. They don't even use EVI's, which is the FIRST thing I'd do to try to get some quick performance gains for almost no effort. > > Actually, though, the underlying guts of JDE OW on the 400 was NOT developed with a 4GL. Only the PC side was; the presentation layer. The part that resides on the 400 is written mainly in C and RPG. It was written in different languages for the different platforms (Unix, Wintel, etc). > > The 4GL part is the presentation layer. Which is what most people in these posts have been saying all along that a 4GL can often do well. > > 4GLs are normally good for reports, master file maintenance, queries, and normal straight forward logic. They normally do NOT do well where complex rules and algorithms apply for business logic. How many process control systems have been written with a 4GL? Remember, I'm not talking about the presentation layer, but the underlying operations. > > IMO 4GLs are good for quick development of maintenance programs, standard types of screens, reports, etc. The database side and mass processing of records are best handled in a language where the programmer can choose the exact methods to best accomplish the task based on assessment of quantities and makup of the data, and the problems faced. > > IMHO RPG on the 400 is best for that. > > MYSELF, I wish we could get away from displaying ANYTHING from the 400. Let it be the premier database server that it is, and let the Wintel platforms display the data, with 4GL tools, and anything that applies to make the presentation layer easier to produce. > > This is what JDE OW has attempted (poorly) to do. It's a great idea, and if JDE ever finishes developing this product to where it is ready for release, it'll be great. Too bad they released it about a decade too soon. > > -dan

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

nyuk, nyuk. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "mikejsavino" wrote in message news:6b2091d0.39@WebX.WawyahGHajS... > And there seems to be lots of them being thrown around in this discussion. > > Does everyone here realize that 96.45% of all statistics are made up on the spot ?? > > Trust me on this one. > > Happy New Year, > > Mike

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

All- It appears to me that most of the RPG diehard posters here are in DENIAL mode. First, let me say this my bread and butter is RPG and IBM ( both old and new ). But, to say that RPG is the best is a falacy ... This is the truth... Most IBMer's up to now believed PL/I is the best programming language they created on earth. If you have not coded on PL/I ask our dearest RPG guru Bob Cozzi for his honest opinion. In fact RPG FREE is beginning to look like PL/I by syntax.

[R.Daugherty]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

While I'm ranting about evil software companies, I'll throw this in. This is the kind of stuff that Oracle will do to companies. I have a purchased Windows 98 OS legally installed from the CD on a PC not on the internet, and a purchased Street Atlas 2003 legally installed on it from the CD. This PC used to be on Roadrunner but I no longer have Roadrunner. Yesterday my Street Atlas refused to "Find" locations on a map. Instead I got a "Refused to initialize (ISO error)". I thought it must have been something I clicked wrong or something, and I made a number of different attempts to get any of my previous searches to work again, to no avail. So I type the error into Google on my laptop on the internet and up comes a support posting from DeLorme referring to Microsoft driver problems due to bad system date. Huh? Ok, the year changed to 2005 but so what? The support page said to ask Microsoft nicely to please let you use your software again. Not quite believing that Microsoft would put a timeout on their database ODBC drivers, I set the date on my PC back to 2004. Voila! Street Atlas can work again. Is this really the way you want software companies to control your business? I didn't think so. I'll just set my date back when using Street Atlas and once again condemn Microsoft to a very hot place for eternity. rd

[R.Daugherty]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

cdr, it's not the type of business but the size of the business, or government for that matter, that requires ability to handle complexity. You do not appear to be speaking from experience in a complex environment. As for your list, the S/3 family (System 3x, AS/400, iseries, i5, yada yada yada) and RPG software is renowned for it's history in the wholesale, distribution, and retail industries. If it is a Fortune 500 in these industries, they likely got there on that platform and still the backbone of their operations, albeit diminishing steadily. The larger the operation, the more the power of the AS/400 and RPG programming enabled the business to handle whatever they wanted to take on. The smaller the amount of business transactions, the less a powerful midrange computer and business transaction software is needed. Even where a dozen AS/400's are running the business, the environments I have been in for the last 10 years, retrieving data for reports and analysis would be done with query tools, not RPG programs. RPG creates the data that you refer to. Ease of programming is really shorthand for effectiveness of programming and execution. Query reporting and analysis based on predefined indexes does not require programmers, so programmers wouldn't be hired for that. Businesses also don't want to pay for IT projects when what they want is already there, so of course their goal is to eliminate huge IT project costs and run their businesses without paying those costs. My gut feel at this time is that RPG packages on the midrange and COBOL packages on the mainframe for certain larger scale operations in some industries were far more cost effective than implementing even vanilla ERP's that run on Unix and Windows, but so far businesses are being told the extra cost is for advanced features not found on the midrange AS/400 software. We have seen what happened to AS/400 software vendors as a result, but Oracle smashing Peoplesoft and JDE changes everything. Businesses will be looking for an alternative because Oracle doesn't fool them about the alleged value at Oracle pricing. It would be nice if the cost effectiveness of the AS/400 and RPG software is re-recognized now. rd

[David Abramowitz]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

CDR5000 observed: End users are quite good at retrieving what they need without IT's help. Have you noticed this yet? No Dave

[J.Pluta]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

Nearly any commercial enterprise may or may not need back-end processing, depending primarily on the size and complexity of the individual operation and their business rules. For example, a typical formal wear shop doesn't need much in the way of computerization. Even so, nearly every one in my area has gone to PCs for ease of use, probably using Microsoft Access in the background. They don't need much in the way of computing services, and they also aren't likely to do their own programming when they do. This low end customer may never require anything like RPG. On the other hand, let's say this company grows and becomes a multi-state formal wear distributor. At this point you have issues with shipping, promotions and deals, multiple locations, high-volume order entry, scheduling for peak periods, and the like. At this point, the company needs the power of a flexible business rules system, and for that, nothing is better than RPG. The pink elephant is a product of some pretty faulty logic on your part. Even if a non-RPG solution exists, that does not imply that RPG isn't the best tool. I CAN write a perfectly competent solution in assembly language, or Pascal (in fact, I did quite a bit of this in Pascal in a previous life). I can also put in a screw using a brick. That doesn't make Pascal better than RPG, or a brick better than a screwdriver, it just makes me silly for using the wrong tool. However, there are people who have been convinced either by hype or by consultants that there are better languages than RPG. I merely point to the fact that not one person has ever developed a from-scratch MRP generation in anything like the same time it can be done in RPG. Until you prove this statement wrong, I have no further comment on the topic. I'm tired of your pink elephants (they must be first cousins to red herrings). As to the cutoff point, I pretty much feel that if you can run your business on Microsoft Access, then you don't need a back-end system. And there is a niche for those who want to provide consulting services to such companies. It's just not the niche that requires my skill set. Joe

[David Abramowitz]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

Joe Pluta wrote: Otherwise, we're going to continue to hear about "30 to 1 productivity gains". This is one of those things that presses my hot buttons. The assumption is that a single outsourcing programmer is replacing a single in-hous programmer.. . . . . . ..Until the bill is received. Dave

[J.Pluta]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

I have no idea why it even keeps getting mentioned except that maybe they think that's a program worth mentioning or something. I don't know. I don't discount the standard maintenance, query and report prompt programs. They're part and parcel of every system ever developed. However, as push-button development tools and code generators become more ubiquitous, I see more and more tool vendors confusing this with programming. There is a real confusion about how hard it is to actually program real business logic. I think I'm going to write an article about this. It seems to me that there needs to be a clearly delineated break between presentation layer programming and business logic. The fact that tool vendors tend to focus on the former and gloss over the latter is probably part of the reason that non-technical executives think that everything can be outsourced; if it can be done by a code generator, surely it can be done by a human being (who we'll pay the equivalent of $3.50 an hour, and we'll all be happy). Hourly figure based on standard monthly pay of 25000 rupees, or about USD$575. This is a median-range figure for someone with 2-3 years experience; folks with 5-6 years experience may get about double that, "freshers" out of college will get half that. We really need to get serious about this. We need to identify that there are different types of programming, and that each requires different skill sets. Otherwise, we're going to continue to hear about "30 to 1 productivity gains". Joe

[M.Savino]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

Tony, "Easy as Pie" ?? You're starting to sound like a Salesman. ;-) When I make an intentional understatement, I use the term "It's a Piece-a-Cake". That let's my co-workers know that it won't be as easy as it looks. But what you're describing sounds (to me) to be very similar to the Event Driven architecture that's used in VB, JDE OneWorld Event Rules and the list goes on. And in my experience, I've found the Event Driven architecture to be at best useless and at worst an hinderance when trying to code Business Logic. In these types of Functions, I need to control the flow of the code. So chances are, I'm going to put that code in it's own module. I don't want it scattered around at the Form, Field or Record levels. And I certainly don't want it jumping randomly from One Event to Another, simply because Joe User moved the Mouse. So how does the Oracle 4GL help me in that situation? Mike

[M.Savino]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

And there seems to be lots of them being thrown around in this discussion. Does everyone here realize that 96.45% of all statistics are made up on the spot ?? Trust me on this one. Happy New Year, Mike

[R.Daugherty]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

Yes, Joe, you're right. I believe 6 out of 10 websites use MySQL because its PHP's default database. My own site is that way. I have a little bit of SQL to populate my home page when it comes up with latest data from my forum database. That falls somewhere between warm and fuzzy and cheap thrills. A bunch of sites would be based on SQL Server. I doubt Oracle has even 1 out of 10 sites. It's scary that anyone could even think that. Isolated logic? You don't have to read all the parts of the program to make changes? What kind of changes? What useful function ever was done in isolation against one file? Has anyone ever seen an ERP program that did anything useful looking at one file? And as for not needing to know about the rest of the program, that reminds me of BPCS maintenance programmers who were not quite up to snuff who were told there was a problem if such and happened, so they would go into a program and write code equivalent to IF such and such happens, make this problem go away rather than figuring out where in the program the problem logic is. And the "shell" maintenance programs that keeps getting mentioned? I imagine most products do that. I did in 1984 with my database. It's about as trivial as you get. And because of that, I have never seen such a program used in production in my 13 years on the AS/400 (would have been 14 had I worked this year). Never. Not even close. If it was that close we just used DFU/DBU/EZ/Extermin8/etc. I have no idea why it even keeps getting mentioned except that maybe they think that's a program worth mentioning or something. I don't know. rd

[J.Pluta]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

Don't you know that 6 out of 10 web sites are using ORACLE DBMS and/or tools. Uh, where does THIS information come from? As far as I know there are a whole bunch of web sites using SQL Server, as well as a slew of them using things like MySQL. Even among the big sites, Oracle is not as prevalent as your claim. I think Amazon uses Oracle, but Google doesn't, nor does Travelocity. None of the online trading firms use Oracle that I can tell, nor do many banks, or airlines. Ameritrade, even though it uses Oracle for its back-end processing, uses a different database for its web applications. Joe, programmers code these non-WEB applications using 4GL tools like SQL*FORMS. It's a 30 to 1 ratio of productivity. To code WHAT, exactly? Maintenance programs? That's nice. Now, how much productivity do you get doing senior-level programming tasks such as MRP and pricing? And by the way, with a decent skeleton I can knock out a "work-with" style maintenance program in a day. Are you saying an SQLFORMS programmer can write 30 maintenance programs a day? That's one every fifteen minutes. I'd really like to see that. Remember that Triggers can be in Form, Block, Record or Field levels, so your logic is isolated to these levels, so you don't have to read all the program parts in maintaining/ debugging because of these architectural design. And this is probably the crux of the biscuit. While a certain part of business logic has to do with the presentation, the hard stuff is has to do with validating transactions. Transaction validation requires interactions between multiple database elements, whether it be customer types or item classes or discounts or GL accounts. There has yet to be a tool designed for this level of the program. So typically, a salesman walks in with a tool that generates a file maintenance program with a few edits, then generates a web version, and tada, we're done! But the hard part is to then write the REAL business logic - the stuff that determines which orders go to which production lines, which customers get which discounts, which inventory gets shipped where, which pallets get loaded on which truck. None of this is helped by a 4GL, and in many cases it is hindered, because the typical 4GL actually reduces the number of programming options available. Anyway, as many people have said over and over here, until you can write the real guts of a system with a given tool, then the tool is not adequate for enterprise level development. Joe

[J.Pluta]

Oracle Courts PeopleSoft's iSeries Users

Chuck: I build relationships with vendors. If I ever found out a salesman lied to me that'd be the end of that salesman or, if the vendor doesn't correct it, the end of the relationship with that vendor. Wow. Twice in one month I agree wholeheartedly with Chuck! I'm gonna have to get checked out... Seriously, though, I am a vendor and I never lie to a prospect, and in fact will steer them to competitive products if it makes sense. I'd rather have a few happy customers than a bunch of unhappy victims. Joe