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Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

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  • Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

    These are good points. I like the idea of using "target appropriate" names. WebSphere Development Studio definitely has a better ring to it than WDSC, and I agree that we need to call the prgoramming environment ILE. I do find it interesting, though, that Microsoft is starting to move away from the .NET brand; the latest versions of Visual Studio and Visual Basic both have dropped the .NET moniker. And of course, the bigger issue is that the System i is *THE* integration platform. It supports more languages and more environments than anything short of VMWare, and I suppose you could theoretically run VMWare on an IXS card (or whatever they're called) inside a System i. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to get more proprietary, while leaving the integration to third party vendors like Mainsoft. This of course leaves Microsoft with the ability to squish them at any time if they see a profit to be made. Joe

  • #2
    Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

    Hi TAGrove, Not trying to pick on you but, who is ever fully trained? I don't consider myself to be fully trained in anything, but have turned out a few applications that are in Production. If you are 'fully' trained in anything that you use to make a living ( unless you work on a production line, but wait the company just instituted a change, no they discontinued your line), you are indeed fortunate. Managers don't hold the future of the system, 'we' do. If 'we' give the company something that fills their needs 'we' stay. If 'we' don't we will slowly (but more rapidly) be replaced. I contend that that little pc's and everything that has evolved from that came from a whole lot of 'spare time' incomplete training and incomplete applications that gave the company something they wanted. If 'we' sit around and don't learn new things to do to razzle dazzle em, but not even that, how many times does a manager ask the programming staff, can we do this or that? And guess what, we can't, because we didn't use our spare time to learn how to do it, or at least anticipate the company would want to do this or that and find out at least where to learn how to do it, so we could have a chance to do it, instead of some pc guy with a lot of 'spare time' jumping up and saying 'yea, I did something like that just last nite on my linux and pc network at home'. I Can't be the only one that sees that relationship? Can you think of any field except for the most simple of jobs where the employer is expected to foot the bill and the time for all training ( and we can't say advanced training like we need just a little supplement every now and then)? We need to be continuing to train and update ourselves or we become the 20 year programmer with two years of experience, instead of a valuable, marketable, current skilled contributor.

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    • #3
      Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

      Ok the Spare time thing: ctibodoe wrote" ...instead of some pc guy with a lot of 'spare time' jumping up and saying 'yea, I did something like that just last nite on my linux and pc network at home" I learn things in my spare time at home, just like the PC/Linux guy: It's called Visual Studio. Why? Because I CAN learn it at home in my spare time. Can I do so with Websphere? NO I'll say it again, louder this time: NO!!!!!!!!! Why? Because I don't have an AS400 sitting in my den, and I can't legally own Websphere on my own. Also, please note that I didn't state that I wanted to know the tool inside and out, I stated that I wanted training to be able to produce an application that doesn't look half-assed. That's what I meant by "Fully Trained". I also want to be able to create applications that the PC/Linux guy can't say: Gee, I can do that in half the time AND run it on a web server that is twice as responsive. Joe wrote: "And if you can't make the time for learning essential skills, then you will be left behind. It's as simple as that" Joe, you and I have sparred on this issue a few times. I contend that IBM is leaving us programers behind by making us jump through hoops to get trained. Microsoft has a free version of it's development tools, AND free training videos online, AND free hands-on labs, AND MVP's who will answer your questions in their forums, AND do I need to go on? IBM says, "LEARN WEBSPHERE, IT'S THE FUTURE", then leaves us hanging. If you want to continue to think that I'm just being lazy by not learning Websphere, or that I'm misguided by how easy it is to learn it, or that I have the power to tell my boss that we need to re-write our green-screen applications to Websphere, go ahead and think that. Where I work, we have a package: McKesson Series. I can't just start re-writing it using websphere. Also, I can't write web apps, and force the user to jump back and forth between them for the Series app, because my manager would shoot down any such foolishness. So, as for being left behind: it's IBM and Websphere that are being phased out of the data centers, in favor of Intel servers and Microsoft servers. I wish it weren't so, but it is. So, I'm learning the skills that won't have me be left behind: Microsoft Visual Studio (which you can use to create windows and web applications for the AS400 on as well). So, which should I learn, Websphere which is only good for writing AS400 applications or Visual studio which can write applications for the As400 and PC apps? Duh. The one that gives greater flexibility and increases my ability to work on disparate systems.

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      • #4
        Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

        I have two AS/400's (iSeries)in my Den, or anywhere else I want them, for less than $40 a month. I do this on a recent computer purchase that is far less than what my pc employed son (and gamer) has at his home. I can create apps on the Web, that are only as half baked as I could make them anywhere else. And, I have a legal copy of WDSc and use it legally, and have had such since about 2000, but only started using it at work regularly last Nov 06. So if when you say Websphere you are talking about the tools, you can have them, but no, they are not free. If you want to work with only free tools, that is a choice. If you want to work in the iSeries world and everything be free, well that is a choice, too. If you have chosen, or landed in a shop that is not progressive in the iSeries world and that is not what you want, well there lies another choice. Maybe today I could choose to be a HDTV Plasma, LCD, DLP and 1080p technician....but wait, I want the industry to train me for free....and provide all the tools I need...and wait, I want to take this training at my present employer on his time....sounds like a choice.... I know about the old TV world and the training and tools ain't free, cause that is what I did in another life, and NONE of it was free and it wasn't static or one time either. There is nothing wrong with choosing Visual Studio, I wish you well, you will reap a crop relative to the one you sow.

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        • #5
          Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

          ctibodoe: "If you want to work with only free tools, that is a choice. If you want to work in the iSeries world and everything be free, well that is a choice, too." I actually own the professional version of Visual Studio, but LEARNED on the free versions, which is my point. "If you have chosen, or landed in a shop that is not progressive in the iSeries world and that is not what you want, well there lies another choice." I have chosen/landed in a shop that was the only employment on the AS400 to be found within a 50 mile radius from where I live that had a job available, when I was unemployed for nearly 2 years. Funny though, during that time there were literally hundreds of .NET jobs available within that same radius..... As for them not being "Progressive", they own a package. Pure and simple, they cannot modify the package so extensibly that support is no longer available, or that putting on an upgrade would take years to do. (we just went from version 9.0 to 11.0 of this package, and the upgrade took 4 months. Had we been "Progressive" and modified all of it's interfaces to be Web interfaces, we'd still be doing so...) "And, I have a legal copy of WDSc and use it legally, and have had such since about 2000, but only started using it at work regularly last Nov 06. So if when you say Websphere you are talking about the tools, you can have them, but no, they are not free." I take it that you are referring to www.rikascom.net. The first I'd heard of it was in this thread. Believe me, I was interested, and have been to their site. But, that is not a legal copy that you purchased from IBM, it is a usage license from rikascom.net. Call IBM and ask to purchase WDSC. You can't. Rikascom.net licensing does allow you to have a copy to work with, I'll agree. But, I'm going to have to purchase an account there to get WDSC. And I am interested in looking into this in the future, AFTER I am finished with .NET. "Maybe today I could choose to be a HDTV Plasma, LCD, DLP and 1080p technician....but wait, I want the industry to train me for free....and provide all the tools I need...and wait, I want to take this training at my present employer on his time....sounds like a choice.... I know about the old TV world and the training and tools ain't free, cause that is what I did in another life, and NONE of it was free and it wasn't static or one time either. " Your comparison doesn't hold up. That's hardware, I'm talking software. One side (Microsoft) DOES give you the tools to train yourself for free, and one side (IBM) that doesn't. That's all. Have I purchased the full set of tools to "Be an HDTV repairman", from Microsoft? Yes. Did I learn how to use them from Microsoft first? Yes. Have I purchased he full set of tools from IBM for Websphere development? No. I can't purchase them from IBM. Even if I wanted to. Can I learn how to use them at Rikascom.net? No. I can have access to the tools, that's it. Can I buy Joe's book? Yes. Can I pay for myself to go to an IBM course? Yes. Are these options the same? No. My entire point is that Websphere is not as easily accessible as VS.NET from a learning standpoint, or from a purchasing standpoint; for the developer. Simple question: In the real world today, if you asked a CIO whether they wanted their programmers to learn Websphere or VS.NET, which would they choose. Simple Answer: VS.NET, because it is more flexible in the platforms that it can develop applications for.

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          • #6
            Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

            I know my points are valid, but the people in this forum who bleed big blue will never acknowledge it. I have been told for the past 7 years that I should learn Websphere and Java. Seven years later, and I look at the job boards and what do I see? Few jobs for Websphere and Java, if any. If it was truly the way to go, you think there's be some...... But, never mind. I'm just one nut who loves the As400, but has the foresight to see that it is not going to be there for me in the future.

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            • #7
              Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

              The jobs would say J2EE, not Websphere (which is a J2EE app server). And there is an acute shortage of J2EE qualified programmers. The stuff someone said about choosing a "progressive" iseries employer is just plain goofy. Choose? As you said, you're lucky if you can find any employer. Also the stuff about technology choices with package modifications are also common. Very little of the kind of stuff you responded to has anything to do with business ROI. There is a claim of spend a lot of money now and allegedly less later, based on very touchy feely preferences which are not demonstratably a magnitude more cost efficient over the entire life cycle, which is what that kind of investment would require. This goes across platforms and lamguages, it's just a goofy IT hyped meme that is in fact demonstratably more costly over the entire life cycle. The IT industry has proven that over the last decade. rd

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              • #8
                Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

                In my reality: One of the problems with choices is that whoever or whomever is making the choice then decides that their answer must the 'right' answer. We can all choose different things one day and all be right, the next day we are all wrong, and then the next day some are right and some are wrong. My point is everyone has a choice to make. I don't bleed blue... When I got out of the USAF many years ago I interviewed with IBM in New Orleans and the interviewer declined my offer to work there. So, being who I am, I asked why? He said I was better trained to work on pinball machines than whatever they would have put me on if hired. So, IBM has never held a soft spot in my heart. But, today I find myself working with software on hardware that I enjoy, it just happens to be IBM... Your point about CIO's choices don't hold water where I pick up my check THIS WEEK....but go back to where I picked up my check in October of last year....and BINGO...you are right they decided to ditch the 400 and all that goes with it and bring in the Indians with newly written package in .NET. Are they right or wrong....I don't care....it didn't fit me anymore...and if I had decided to only look for work within 50 miles, I wouldn't have the life or lifestyle that I CHOOSE to have and keep and support. WDSc works for me, it seems that it doesn't work for you, that's okay, stop by and have a cup of coffee and chicory on me, or better a bowl of gumbo or some boiled crawfish, crabs or shrimp....but be prepared to drive for 9 1/2 hours from my last job to do it. Now some views that are mine: A progressive shop does what it needs to do to get it done. It doesn't matter what platform,(a shop can be a progressive .NET shop, just check out where I just left) as long as the doors stay open because the business continues to make money. IBM isn't going to give much of anything away, they are also not going to do lot that makes sense to me either. But I don't care, as long I can use them to make a good living and support my vices. No one is going to hold my hand and teach me anything, but more important I have never waited for such a thing to happen. (Actually not true, I have been blessed in many areas of my life with really great mentors, but they don't usually show up until one jumps thru enough hoops on their own, Thanks to my mentors, you know who most of you are, and Joe Pluta I consider you one of them). There are progressive AS/400 shops. Not all are, and not all have the possibility to be one...those dang choices again. So, I confess. I am a 400'er. I want progressive articles written. I want progressive books written. I want progressive training. I want conversation about the 400. I will be a 400'er until the day I make the choice to not be. (But I bleed green, the color of what pays my bills). If the 400 dies, I won't. I won't change my lifestyle either, not without a fight. So, what was the question? Is WDSc worth it. In my reality it is.

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                • #9
                  Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

                  My perception of reality....if you aren't choosing 'YOUR' line of employment and 'YOUR' employer, then you are mostly going to be unhappy. (Ask me how I know this, and how many years it took me to figure it out.) Now I don't go for all that feel good stuff about giving up a good lifestyle and going to live in the woods with pocketknife and give up electricity....unless that is what you want to do. I JUST MADE A CHOICE BETWEEN TWO GREAT PROGRESSIVE AS/400 SHOPS and it was agonizing. Am I special? Well if you asked my MOM, maybe. I have taken the time to learn a thing or two and go after the things in life I want. If every last RPG'er decided tomorrow to go after this same thing would everyone of us find that choice of a job? Absolutely not. But to say that choosing between progressive iseries employers who both wanted me to work for them is 'GOOFY', then I confess: Goofy is as Goofy does, and he does it with WDSc. If tomorrow there are no more choices for any developer to make about where to accept a job(and someone assigns out all of the iseries employment), then I agree, it will be time to move on to something else.

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                  • #10
                    Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

                    Ugh. I debate with myself whether to get into this or not, but I will because there are a couple of issues which just have to be addressed. First, my primary target audience is people who program for the System i. If you are still trying to figure out which platform you want to use, then by all means, use any of the tools out there that maximize your employment potential. It's definitely all about choice. Me, I have no desire to be in a shop that is trying to make a Microsoft-based business application work. Next, please differentiate between WebSphere Application Server and WDSC, the WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries. The two are completely separate. While you can use WDSC to devleop WAS applications, you can also use it to create a wide variety of other applications, ranging from completely platform-independent J2EE applications to completely server-side green screen applications. It's your choice. As Craig points out, you can get WDSC as well as access to an iSeries for roughly the same amount as your cell phone (or a few meals at McDonalds, depending on your appetite). If you can't afford that for your career, then I have to put you into the hobbiest category. And truth be told, this might sound a little elitist, but the iSeries is probably not the place for hobbiests. And finally on a non-iSeries note, the most flexible environment is NOT Microsoft, but is instead Java and/or J2EE, which runs on every platform in the world. If you want to have the most flexible trasining in the world, you can learn Java... for free, just like Microsoft. The only difference is that with Java, you NEVER need to pay -- for the tools, for the office software, or for the operating system. Try THAT with Microsoft! Okay, enough. Joe

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                    • #11
                      Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

                      From another Air Force vet (Nam era), and also a recent veteran of job hunting throughout 2004, and someone who moved 14 hours away to get another RPG programming job, I can relate to what both are saying. I can also tell you that during the entire job hunt, not one company or recruiter cited Websphere, WDSC, or anything related as what a company was looking for. Any crapola being fed RPG programmers that because their employer is not using Websphere Development Studio that they are being "left behind" is pure, baseless FUD. What companies wanted was package experience; primarily JDE, JDA, or PKMS. Not only that, but the latest version. Oh, and to be "local". Fat chance very many have a "choice" to make, other than to root up the family or change careers. I understand things have picked up a little since then, and that's great. But for someone working on an RPG green screen package with SEU, they're working for a company that's getting value from the iseries and you, and value is what keeps the company going, and you in your job. In the meantime, for any of those programmers, download Eclipse (which WDSC is a plugin for) and program your own web site, running it from within Eclipse on your own PC until you master the art. Plenty to learn, no cost, and those are the skills that are valuable that you don't have. And the information given here about sites where you can program with WDSC are great info as well. I am getting a personal iseries account for web serving (I already have WDSC at work and used it most of 2005 but primarily use SEU), but I think even with those technologies that you can develop on your PC at home that professional accounts of some type or another at a small cost is fairly common. Even with those doing RPG 5250 programming with SEU, there's lots to learn about ILE to use in your programming. And as you use modules the way most other programming is done, WDSC really becomes a requirement to handle multiple source files interactively with the iseries. As usual though, the prevailing environment will dictate the tools used, not the other way around. rd

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                      • #12
                        Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

                        Any crapola being fed RPG programmers that because their employer is not using Websphere Development Studio that they are being "left behind" is pure, baseless FUD. Not sure where all this vitriol is coming from, but the truth is that if you're not learning WDSC, chances are that over the next couple of years someone at your company is going to learn it. You'll probably sitll use SEU occasionally, but for high-volume work WDSC is just plain better. Because regardless of whether you're the first person in your shop to use WDSC or the last, of the people I've talked to at least four out of five say that WDSC makes them more productive. There are some die-hards; you will have to pry SEU out of their cold, dead fingers (often people with underpowered PCs) but in general the response to WDSC has been overwhelmingly positive. In the meantime, for any of those programmers, download Eclipse (which WDSC is a plugin for) I guess I agree with this, except that if you CAN get WDSC and run it on your home PC, you should do that. Learn Eclipse while learning WDSC and becoming more productive in your primary job, and then start to segue into the web application development world. At some point, if you decide you want to be a bleeding-edge web developer, you can get the latest version of Eclipse and a plug-in like Lomboz or MyEclipse. Joe

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                        • #13
                          Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

                          Joe, to be left behind means that most have moved on. I didn't see that in an extensive job hunt two years ago. To go from WDSC not even being mentioned when I was looking to most companies having adopted it over SEU and the poor RPG prgrammer still working with SEU being "left behind" is not credible. Hence the FUD vitriol. I don't understand the bleeding edge web development thing. The fundamentals of JSP or PHP programming without an iseries are the same. You are prepared at that point to use RPG CGI programs for enterprise web serving with the iseries programming with Websphere Development Studio, in my opinion for public or business partner facing applications such as e-commerce or supply chain, but many of you believe for all business apps. There's a lot to learn on the web front end technologies, but the key is the weakness of CGI programming with other than iseries RPG to do serious business processing. The only other alternatives are Java and .NET, maybe PHP with ZEND caching. It seems to me that secure high performance web serving calls for the iseries with ILE programming. That's the direction I am pursuing after looking at everything else. rd

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                          • #14
                            Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

                            Ralph: I didn't see that in an extensive job hunt two years ago. To go from WDSC not even being mentioned when I was looking to most companies having adopted it over SEU and the poor RPG prgrammer still working with SEU being "left behind" is not credible. Hence the FUD vitriol. Two years is a freaking eon, Ralph. Two years ago, there was hardly an audience for WDSC. Nowadays, I do seminars on WDSC every month. Every System i technical conference has WDSC sessions and/or labs. I've sold hundreds of copies of my books and courses on WDSC. If you're an SEU diehard, you aren't behind today, but "being left behind" is a process. It doesn't mean the train has left the station, just that more and more people are getting onboard. Let's be perfectly clear here: NOBODY is saying that fewer people are using WDSC. The trend is clearly that more people are using the tool every day. Those who insist on staying with SEU are bucking the trend. But that's really only one point. Another equally important point is that WDSC will make you more productive. I would venture that well over 80% of people find WDSC more productive than SEU, and that includes people who initially despised it. There are indeed a segment of people for whom WDSC will never be a better tool, but that number is getting smaller every day. And if you insist on NOT using WDSC, then while you may still be part of the mainstream today the inescapable truth is that someday you will be passed by. Ralph: I don't understand the bleeding edge web development thing. The fundamentals of JSP or PHP programming without an iseries are the same. You are prepared at that point to use RPG CGI programs for enterprise web serving with the iseries programming with Websphere Development Studio, in my opinion for public or business partner facing applications such as e-commerce or supply chain, but many of you believe for all business apps. I agree that JSP is JSP. But you can use WDSC without caring one whit about web development - that's why they have WDSC Lite, which is only the System i development pieces, without any of the web stuff. But I heartily disagree that RPG-CGI is appropriate for anything but the most limited of scenarios. RPG-CGI is fundamentally flawed in several areas. First and foremost, you've tied your middleware to the System i. For many shops, especially smaller ones, it often makes sense to offload as much as possible of the non-business logic processing from the System i and to an ancillary PC running a scaled down OS such as Linux or Windows. With RPG-CGI, that's not possible. Second, the basic "search strings and substitute" concept of CGI of any type is flawed compared to the JSP idea of actually parsing the template and then writing code and compiling it. I think one of the RPG-CGI tool vendors actually does something similar, but then of course you're locked to a single vendor, whereas with JSP you can use any J2EE compliant servlet container, from BEA to Tomcat to WebSphere. Finally, the basic RPG-CGI architecture is resource intensive. The overhead of a job per request doesn't scale well to high volumes. This is less of an issue to me because I tend to focus more on B2B and internal business applications as opposed to anonymous B2C models, but it's still a viable concern. Again, there are workarounds such as Fast-CGI, but I personally prefer to stick with more vanilla non-vendor-specific solutions. I know that's sort of heretical since I sell a vendor-specific middleware product, but even my PSC conversion tool uses only vanilla JSP logic -- it runs on any J2EE compliant servlet container. Joe

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                            • #15
                              Weaving WebSphere: Is WDSC Worth It or Not?

                              You are prepared at that point to use RPG CGI programs for enterprise web serving... But I heartily disagree that RPG-CGI is appropriate for anything but the most limited of scenarios. When you call an RPG program from a JSP or PHP or RPG-CGI program, isn't the RPG program still part of the CGI process? I guess I should have said RPG backend programs or something. RPG-CGI is just one interface for calling RPG programs. By the way, the point of loading complex logic in a CGI process is of course the downfall whatever the technology used, which is why I've chosen to go with RPG dataq servers to serve the CGI programs. I'm planning on RPG-CGI instead of JSP, but the loads will be equivalent. Either way, with JSP, RPG-CGI, or PHP, it'd be a dataq or sockets communication to a running RPG process. It could be any of them, but I'm going to try RPG-CGI first. I believe it should do the job well. JSP and PHP as embedded modules in Apache would normally be an advantage, but I read you can configure x number of CGI programs to stay resident so there won't be a load overhead for that number of RPG-CGI web page process programs either. I don't have any results yet, but that's my direction. The analysis was helpful though. Thanks, Joe. rd

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