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It's the DEVELOPERS, stupid!
Hi, As many are complaining about the future of the i5, IBM being incompentent etc etc, we seem to forget that it's always the developers community that breaks or makes a platform. Bill Gates always knew that which is why MS introduced VB very soon after the introduction of Windows. With VB, almost anyone could easily build an app with a GUI. Without VB, e.g. by using C, making a Windows app was quite complex and had a steep learning curve. If all programmers would stick at using C and were not very motivated to learn new technologies most Windows apps would have looked like old DOS apps, use a character interface. Indeed, IBM, as it still really is a hardware manufacturer (and not a software company), specifically the as/400/iSeries/i5 division, did not and still doesn't get this (e.g. asking thousends of dollars for a need-to-have SDA replacement in WDSCi). But, still it's the company who created this fine machine. Anyhow, the i5 is a great machine, it's the development tools that are not up to date (WDSCi is still lightyears from VS2005). But nowadays we have the necessery tools to build whatever you can think of for the i5. We have PASE, a C/C++ compiler, etc. The platform has great potential, but the developers community is lacking development skills and seems only to complain about the platform's future. But do nothing about it. And they are really the only ones who can. IBM has delivered the necessary tools, albeit a bit late. Now it's up to us. As an example, the lack of a GUI. Stop whining that 5250 is great for data-entry blah blah. It's not. It's an arcane, inflexible and very limited technology and it's programming interface (subfiles etc) is horrible. With a GUI one can build data-entry screens just as good and even better than with 5250. It's just a matter of design. But with unlimited flexibility. For example, one could build an even better data-entry screen because you could instruct the cursor to go to a specific field after pressing the tab. One can't do this with 5250. My point is this. If weare so in need of a GUI, then why don't we build one? Or better, port the X Windows System to the i5. Technically, this would be no rocket-science, as i5/OS can be viewed as a "unix-type" platform. And X Window has been ported to many different unix-like platforms. This is also the way it works for the unix platform. The developer community has a need, and decides to build it. The problem with the i5 is that this community is not as large and diverse as the unix community, and it is less skillful. But there as to be anough skill to undertake a project like this. Especially because our own future depends upon initiatives like this. Don't count on IBM to do it for you. We have to do it ourselves. I really believe this is the only strategie which is going to work. John
Hi, As many are complaining about the future of the i5, IBM being incompentent etc etc, we seem to forget that it's always the developers community that breaks or makes a platform. Bill Gates always knew that which is why MS introduced VB very soon after the introduction of Windows. With VB, almost anyone could easily build an app with a GUI. Without VB, e.g. by using C, making a Windows app was quite complex and had a steep learning curve. If all programmers would stick at using C and were not very motivated to learn new technologies most Windows apps would have looked like old DOS apps, use a character interface. Indeed, IBM, as it still really is a hardware manufacturer (and not a software company), specifically the as/400/iSeries/i5 division, did not and still doesn't get this (e.g. asking thousends of dollars for a need-to-have SDA replacement in WDSCi). But, still it's the company who created this fine machine. Anyhow, the i5 is a great machine, it's the development tools that are not up to date (WDSCi is still lightyears from VS2005). But nowadays we have the necessery tools to build whatever you can think of for the i5. We have PASE, a C/C++ compiler, etc. The platform has great potential, but the developers community is lacking development skills and seems only to complain about the platform's future. But do nothing about it. And they are really the only ones who can. IBM has delivered the necessary tools, albeit a bit late. Now it's up to us. As an example, the lack of a GUI. Stop whining that 5250 is great for data-entry blah blah. It's not. It's an arcane, inflexible and very limited technology and it's programming interface (subfiles etc) is horrible. With a GUI one can build data-entry screens just as good and even better than with 5250. It's just a matter of design. But with unlimited flexibility. For example, one could build an even better data-entry screen because you could instruct the cursor to go to a specific field after pressing the tab. One can't do this with 5250. My point is this. If weare so in need of a GUI, then why don't we build one? Or better, port the X Windows System to the i5. Technically, this would be no rocket-science, as i5/OS can be viewed as a "unix-type" platform. And X Window has been ported to many different unix-like platforms. This is also the way it works for the unix platform. The developer community has a need, and decides to build it. The problem with the i5 is that this community is not as large and diverse as the unix community, and it is less skillful. But there as to be anough skill to undertake a project like this. Especially because our own future depends upon initiatives like this. Don't count on IBM to do it for you. We have to do it ourselves. I really believe this is the only strategie which is going to work. John
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