Tweet
cdr5000, Please help me to understand what you would like me to explain. To me a Purchasing system is a purchasing system. It's certainly not rocket science and not a new thinking. We happen to do it in WebSmart instead of green screen. Maybe I'm not clear on what you want to hear about it. Can you be more specific. BTW, we do some pretty dynamic things in WebSmart. Often we're parsing and generating the HTML and JavaScript within the body of the program. For example. Our Item master file has 429 fields in it. Many departments have input to the file. Accounting deals with cost, the warehouse deals with dimensions and packing info, sales deals with royalties, the Internet department deals with long descriptions, companion items, etc. They all update some fields in the file. No one person updates the entire file. We have a separate security file that defines, by group, what fields they have access to in a read or change mode. We only want to use one program to update the item master. In the past we had green screen with many panels (about 22 panels in all) that showed all fields and just protected or "non-displayed" the ones that they didn't have access to. But they had to go through all 22 panels. We now have a WebSmart program that reads the file the security file and then builds, on the fly, the HTML tags that get displayed on the screen. The user never sees the fields they aren't allowed to see and they only get input tags (or checkbox or listbox, etc.) for fields they can update. It's actually more complicated than that as we allow users to customize the screen and group fields logically together to make it easier to input the data. (Some times the source document comes on paper and they can lay out the web page in the same order as the paper page for easier entry.) All of the HTML is parsed/built in the program at run time. This includes the select/option tags for dropdown lists, the checboxes for yes/no fields, the input tags for straight typing, etc. It's a pretty cool program and the users just love it. Especially those who only deal with a handful of fields. No longer paging through 22 panels to get out. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "cdr5000" wrote in message news:6b22cb3a.0@WebX.WawyahGHajS... > In a comment towards the end of that thread, you made an almost off handed > remark about a purchasing system written with Websmart that provides > significant capabilities. > > Actually, I am interested in this more than the other topic. Please > elaborate as you see fit. > > While I am not programming any longer, I frequently spent time between > projects learning new technologies. My clients were usually at the small > end of the SMB market. Many years ago when ASP was new, I wrote a small > but fully featured job posting system as a learning experience. > > I discovered (at that time) that hand coded web pages were best for > lightly dynamic database driven situations. Simple user input and only a > little validation was about the most realistic thing you could expect with > respect to I/O. > > Dynamic presentation was the highest and best use without resorting to > specialized and purchased tools to provide functions such as payment > processing. Or teams of dedicated web programmers and a correspondingly > high budget. > > ColdFusion left me with a similar opinion back then. The first version of > ASP.Net using Visual Studio and a neat ASP.Net tool that worked within > HomeSite provided a more gee-whiz experience, but left me with a similar > feeling. > > Now, here comes Chuck telling ther world that WebSmart can deliver the > holy grail of a fully interactive data driven application using a generic > user interface (the browser) and it is robust enough to turn loose company > wide. > > Until you mentioned this, I was still under the impression that forms > based programming was still a necessity for robust applications. Web > applications were best for Amazon type processing. > > Please provide more details. > > BTW, I am not a Java or a CGI maven. While consulting, I noticed too many > companies that pinned their hopes on splintered technologies and found it > difficult to get maintenance down the road after the original developer > left or the technology became old news. My philosophy basically became: > Keep it simple. Make it only as technical as required. Make sure it can be > easily maintained by an average developer. Put the most effort in the > design, how well it meets the company's needs, and how the user will react > to it.
-
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
I followed the ackerman/pluta/dkenzie, and cdr5000, thread regarding browser development via CGI-RPG versus Websphere/Java with interest. I have been able to provide value to my clients for 20 plus years, the most recent being 15 years on the AS/400, I mean, iSeries. Perhaps their arguments are moot depending upon whether the iSeries continues to exist. I pose two questions regarding remaing, useful life: 1) What is your estimate for the remaining, useful life (with application development continuing) for the iSeries? As a custom "business solutions" provider to the iSeries, I have mostly used intelligent design as my forte, and some type of "development assisting" software to execute the design. Heck, I'm even quite skilled using the maligned(earlier in this thread) AS/SET tool. I found it to be much quicker and more flexible than SYNON, although my SYNON experience was more limited. I can't speak directly to rapid and flexible deployment using Websmart, but if it's related in usefulness to ProGen, then I would guess it's intended to be a "business case/ROI" performer. MY remaining, useful life (in application development) seems somewhat tied to the iSeries. To broaden my horizons, I've done some development with ASNA's AVR, and begun .NET training with Visual Studio. But, I see more and more clients moving towards packaged solutions. Then, instead of application development, the programming staff becomes migration/mappers/network admins. 2) Can I continue much longer (10 years) to have a remaining, useful life developing applications with iSeries, using tools like Websmart, or should I hang up my "business solutions" hat, and become a "coder" using some .NET language or even something like SAP's ABAP, or (heaven forbid) resign myself to becoming a sys admin? Thanks for the strategic advice, it may become tactical advice in the very near term. -
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
cdr5000, IBM has recently announced that WebSmart is part of their roadmap. Also, as I understand it, WebSmart is now shipped on the i5/OS installed CDs and can be installed as any other IBM product. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "cdr5000"Comment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
cdr5000, I'm still a little hazy on your definitions here. Maybe this will help... At the minimum our WebSmart programs act similar in ways to the green screen past. Here's an example of a file update. When a user runs a program a "subfile like" page is presented with X number of records, kinda like a subfile list. They get may get Add, Change, Delete links next to each line and "next" and "previous" buttons at the bottom. Selecting change presents a "flat panel like" web page where they can change the data and submit it, which brings them back to the list. That's a basic program. In reality, anything that can be done in RPG can be done in WebSmart. Add to that JavaScript and it's a really powerful solution. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "cdr5000"Comment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
cdr5000, How bad is it in the "unexpected place" ? I guess you had some control about where to go after AS/400? How about real estate, insurance, or manage a restaurant? I guess those all require problem-solving skills. (But, I agree. IBM really blew it with the AS/400. The fans were/are nearly as fanatical as those Macintosh guys. And I would say with better reason.)Comment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
Robert, I've been hearing the "our platform is dead" mantra since the mid '80s. About every 2 or 3 years I hear, "but now it's really gonna happen." I base the future on the iSeries on what really is happening at IBM. First, the iSeries line still makes profit. A lot of profit. There's no chance that IBM will soon sell the iSeries line to a company in China. Second, IBM is spending a LOT of money keeping the iSeries on the leading edge curve. The product line is robust, powerful and always reinventing itself. IBM is no fool they won't do this for something they're going to put out to pasture. Often people leave the platform for one reason or another and don't follow the happenings like they did in the past and they feel that the iSeries is now on death row. I don't buy it. The iSeries line is very persistent and I expect will be a strong competitor for a decade or two to come. Don't get me wrong, it'll never be the top selling computer in the world, but it'll do just fine in the niche that it has carved out for itself. Thanks, Chuck "robertnesiba"Comment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
Heck, I'm even quite skilled using the maligned(earlier in this thread) AS/SET tool. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I was maligning some large failures using advanced tools such as AS/SET and Synon GUI (Cool:Plex, etc.) I'm talking $10 million plus failures. One was SSA using their own tool AS/SET to redo Order Entry in AS/SET. They eventually pulled the plug. On the other hand, my understanding is that BPCS eventually was provided mostly in AS/SET, so maybe they finally re-did it successfully. On the other, other hand, what I saw was an RPG to C conversion for the big programs at the time to run on Unix as AS/SET was supposed to produce as C. I don't know what happened after 1996. However, I successfully led a shop floor interface to BPCS project with AS/SET that filled a void for SSA who were having the above described problems getting their new version out. As with any major AS/SET or Synon devlopment, I became adept at reading generated code and figuring out how to tweak the CASE code to do what I wanted. We delivered successfully to SmithKlineBeecham in London who wanted to deploy on either AS/400 or HP-UX, and they were very happy with the real time feed from their shop floor system to BPCS through the AS/SET interface we wrote. So I wouldn't malign it, I would say that every large scale engineering effort using CASE tools that I observed (and was not a major part of) was scrapped, a couple after more than $10 million dollars went into it. The AS/SET shop floor to BPCS interface project was a successful $400,000 project, though. rdComment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
Some good points and questions raised here, and as usual I completely agree with cdr. I don't know if IBM will act in time or not. I have said all along that they won't until they ran out of excuses for the sales stopping, and they apparently have. First, I'm in an odd position commenting on the AS/400 in the SMB market because I mostly know it from large corporations. I think OS/400 and RPG handles transactions against large amounts of data better than anything else, and I wish IBM would do the FBI Virtual Case File system for free just to show the world what their engineering hath wrought versus yet another Oracle SQL mindboggling disaster. But IBM is hung up on Websphere and wouldn't fare any better. But for the small market, Microsoft has bought four small business packages (Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, and Axapta) and is in the process of rewriting them in .NET C# in something called Project Green. There is a small window to get a better product out there, I'd say three years, otherwise Microsoft will own small business with development environments such as VB or AVR used to supplement the .NET packages. There are several perfect solutions for the small to medium sized business on the AS/400, with RPG source code and GUI'ized screens. In my opinion IBM has destroyed the AS/400 in pushing it as some kind of middleware storage and server consolidator, saying they are not in the app business. Well, maybe they aren't, but businesses buy apps. That's what sold the Sys/3X line all these years, and the only, I repeat only, thing that will sell it again. IBM had had a decent AS/400 with ERP package offering with some vendors, but they need to get rid of the green screen tax and get back to selling the AS/400 as the app machine for business. They have a small window before Green and Oracle's Fusion are completed. Then the window will close. rdComment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
Trust me, Microsoft will include the equivalent of Crystal Reports in the Project Green rewrite of Great Plains, Solomon, etc. They already have a mini version thrown in for free with SQL Server. They take all business, and eliminating Crystal Reports will be next. As for Excel, integration with their Office products, especially remote using Groove, is fundamental to their architecture. I called for this from IBM in 2000 in an IMHO column, asking that a new interface for the AS/400 include a subfile style spreadsheet which could have been based on their Lotus 1-2-3 Java component rewrite. Somebody in Armonk told them the AS/400 is simple instead. rdComment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
cdr5000, Maybe I have the advantage of never knowing how it "used" to be. Let me see if I can answer your questions about how some of the things work "in our world." You asked: "The validations are where the heavy IO comes in." I'm not sure why validations would require any heavier I/O than in a traditional green screen program. Let's take the flat panel design. A user enters information on the screen and presses submit. The program is called and the field entries are passed as parameters to the program in the query string. The RPG program fires up, validates all of the data entered. If it's all OK then the record is updated. If not, appropriate error message variables are populated and the same web page segment is redisplayed. This, in my eyes is no different than the way a program is developed in a green screen environment. You asked: "Web forms also have the back key. How does Websmart allow you to control the application so the user can only get to the screens you want?" Well, that can be somewhat of a paradigm shift. Programmers have to understand how that works and deal with it. Certainly the simple method is to expire a previous page. For the most part a "back" key isn't a problem. In fact, on all of our update pages a "Cancel" button sits right next to the Submit button. All the cancel button does is a page back JavaScript action. You asked: "How do you handle secondary lookups such as might be done with a popup subfile window, auto loading a field on the calling screen with selected information?" That's actually pretty simple. Using a Lookup link next to an input field a JavaScript function is called to open up a new web window. When a user makes a selection on the child window the child populates the field(s) on the parent window via JavaScript and closes itself. We make use of this technique frequently. Users love it. If the lookup window has relatively few records to display, say under 500, we put all the records into the lookup window. That way they can use Internet Explorer's Ctrl-F to find the record they want. 500-1000 records or so still keeps us under 1 second response time. You can see these examples and many more on www.excelsystem.com. Many of the techniques we use I've found on the examples they've shown on their website. These guys at Excel Systems (the technical arm of BCD) are really very clever. You asked: "Where would Websmart start to seem a little stressed?" I'm not the one to ask, we haven't reached that point yet. And, based upon what I've heard from them we probably never will. We did, however, find the limit of what can be placed in a browser. We have some applications that dump a LOT of data into a web page. At around 32k or so a web page will crap out. We now know this and put a "next" button at the bottom. BTW, I can fill that web page with data quickly. Hang on a sec, let me write a quick program to test it... I spent 4 minutes writing a program that displayed a list of records from our Item master to the screen. When it ran it took about 10 seconds to display the screen of 16,175 records. Our system running at 99.9% CPU before I started. At the end of the page the following message appeared..."Error ! The server program has attempted to write an amount of data to the browser that exceeds the page size limit. Program has ended." chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.Comment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
Chuck, How do I (and maybe cdr5000) find a company that will hire us to write Websmart applications? I've got lots of ProGen and AS/400 experience, and my primary interest is delivering solutions, not bit-twiddling. I like to learn new stuff, but then use it in real world, mission critical (or at least important), ways.Comment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
Robert, I certainly wouldn't try to find a specific WebSmart shop in which to get hired. Find the right company for you and if they have WebSmart then that's good. If they don't, get them to download a trial copy. Within a day you'll be doing some very cool things. Within a month it should be easy to justify it's purchase. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "robertnesiba"Comment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
Robert, It's entirely possible that BCD may give you, or let you purchase, a copy of the two manuals. They weigh in at about 1,000 pages so there's a lot there. You can learn a lot by looking through them. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "robertnesiba"Comment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
My posts from last night in the "Future King" thread are gone, maybe a rendering limit was hit, I don't know. Anyway, I'll repost here as I sincerely hope IBM will listen. I have worked with several large corporations running their business on the AS/400 with DB2/400 and RPG. One stock transaction file contained over a billion records. OS/400 is the kind of computing architecture that could handle the government's largest failures at the FBI and IRS, but OS/400 with RPG is Cinderella and Websphere with SQL is the ugly step-sister. If only IBM knew where the glass slipper fits. Now, all this having been said about JSP vs. CGI, the end result is still the lowly web page which we have so many advocates for, leaving our AS/400/iseries/i5 at the low end of all computer interfaces. Nowhere else do people work with web pages as the apparent primary workspace. Nor do we ourselves do any fundamental work in them. Yet we somehow delude ourselves into believing IBM and their Websphere web page server is an interface people will buy the i5 for. That is until it is so late no one will even care what we think, if that hasn't already happened. Instead, with one move, the interface for the i5 could be the most advanced interface of all computers and, in domino fashion, the object based OS/400 recognized as the most advanced operating system in the world, and DB2/400 and record level I/O recognized and understood to be behind the business transaction processing greatness of many of the most successful corporations in the world. If IBM put something like the below link on the i5 as our standard interface, with an EXFMT tie in to generate basic screen components by default, I wouldn't even mind if they required Websphere to do it. Just do it before it's midnight. http://www.canoo.com/ulc/ rdComment
-
Thanks to all who participated in Java vs CGI
If history is an indicator, "Project Green" should be a bigger flop for Microsoft than "Project San Francisco" was for IBM. It sounds like Microsoft will become the next victim of Microsoft. They'll have one group of developers relying on .Net architecture as a basis for applications, and another group of developers replacing today's version of .Net with a next-generation version, and not providing a migration path from one to the other. What an irony! They'll ask customers to deploy General Ledger applications on one server, Customer Relations on another, Payables on another, Receivables on another, Procurement on another, Inventory on another, Fixed assets on another, Reporting on another, otherwise applications will destabilize servers. Then customers will require changes in applications to fit changes in business models, but being built on an OO foundation, Microsoft won't be able to respond to customer needs in a timely fashion... This should be interesting to follow ;-) Nathan.Comment
Comment