The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

[R.Daugherty]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
It's funny. The responses have been SEU is productive. I looked through the article two or three times for a statement that a GUI editor is more productive, but it's not there. It's just implied with "unless you edit with GUI editor, you're not evolving". Evolve? Evolve to what, a more productive, better programmer? Last I checked the internet, there were plenty of Unix programmers that still swear by vi. Programmers who use Notepad technically are using a "GUI" editor, but just technically, and I'll be darned if I didn't read about programmers who prefer just to use Notepad. Do these programmers need to "evolve" as well? Or else they're not productive C programmers? They'll probably differ with you on that. And how is F4 with F1 cursor sensitive help not "smart" enough because it's text based? Do we really need characters jumping onto our screen as we type going let me finish, let me finish, you want this, how about this, here try this... Yeah, that's productive. Billions of lines of code was written with SEU. We were known as the most productive business programmers in the world. And then IBM decided we weren't. And now we aren't. I suppose all that Linux code was written with a GUI editor too, heh? IBM decided that Linux was for us too. But with a GUI editor, who cares? We will have evolved. rd

[vin@planetchan.com]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
Today I downloaded Bob's Codestudio & tried it out for the first time. Took me about 60 seconds to figure out how to retrieve some RPG code from my 400, edit it & send it back. I couldn't find the steep learning curve that someone mentioned. For me, this GUI editor could be far more productive than SEU when editing largish programs. This is because the network connection between my PC and my 400 is slow & unreliable, so pressing page-up/down in SEU is sometimes met with 30 seconds of silence. Being able to scroll thru 1000's of line of code within a GUI editor is a welcome relief. Noticed one weird feature so far - although I am able to specify that the "courier new" font is used (where every character is supposed to use the same amount of space), some characters do not behave consistently. Some appear longer than others. The end result is that my code does not appear to line up vertically as it should. An excellent product me thinks and I plan to make regular use of it. My thanks to Bob for creating Cozzistudio.

[R.Daugherty]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
vincent wrote: "Took me about 60 seconds to figure out how to retrieve some RPG code from my 400, edit it & send it back. I couldn't find the steep learning curve that someone mentioned. For me, this GUI editor could be far more productive than SEU when editing largish programs. This is because the network connection between my PC and my 400 is slow & unreliable, so pressing page-up/down in SEU is sometimes met with 30 seconds of silence. Being able to scroll thru 1000's of line of code within a GUI editor is a welcome relief." It takes up to 30 seconds to get one screen of a program in SEU, but how long did it take to transfer the entire program over that same connection, edit it, and transfer it back? Let's see, one screen (maybe 4k?) one way in 30 seconds, the entire largish program as you called it (a few hundred k, more than a meg perhaps?) transferred both ways over that same slow network connection? And you never heard of it before but you refer to it as what, Cozzeditor or something like that? That's pretty slangy for a 60 second newbie... Nice review, though. rd

[vin@planetchan.com]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
Go easy on me Ralph, I'm only a little fellow. Had heard plenty about it (Mr Cozzi being so vocal), just hadn't used it. Actually my 60 seconds was spend on the 'figuring out' stage. The editing & transfering was done more leisurely. My network connection is usually quite healthy and hence usually good enuff for SEU. But sometimes it has hiccups. So when using SEU, sometimes I get long delays between screens. These 'sometimes' might be 20 minutes apart but they like to occur right in the middle of a complex concentration span. And my concentration span isn't all that big. The chances of the codeeditor transfer landing on one of the 'sometimes' is quite small I think. And what does it matter if it does? Just hit the load button again & wait a bit more. The duration of the delay is not really related to the size of the data being transmitted. Every transfer, large or small, stands a chance of being paralysed for a few seconds. So the less transfers the better. Anyway, I come from the C++ era. So this gui stuff feels much more natural to me.

[S.Mildenberger]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
Ralph, Maybe the statement is not there that a GUI editor makes you more productive. But, I can speak for two of us here that Code/400 has improved our productivity a great deal over using SEU. I don't really care if everyone else wants to stick with SEU but using Code/400 has helped me do much more for my company. Scott Mildenberger

[rdean400@yahoo.com]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
CODE/400 supports the SEU line commands (most of them at least -- CC and MM for sure because I use them all the time). It also follows the tab structure of the fixed-form specifications. The bottom line is that the GUI doesn't have to be less productive than the green screen for heads-down keying.

[rdean400@yahoo.com]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
CODE/400 isn't slow on my PC. It's not as fast as SEU, but it is far more productive. I guess it would depend on your development style. I'm much more productive using CODE/400 than when I was using RPG, thanks to these features: - Cut and Paste - Syntax highlighting - Viewing a max of 96 lines of code on the screen at once; 192 if I split the view (I run 1600x1200 resolution on a 21" monitor) - Tab follows field definitions according to the spec, so I don't need syntax prompting to make sure everything's in the proper column - SEU line commands are available (CC, MM, and DD are the ones I like to use most) - All of our programs get compiled with the same options by default (e.g., OPTIONS(*NODEBUGIO) DBGVIEW(*ALL)), and CODE/400 remembers the last-used options for the compilation. - Program Verification does a precompile and then inserts the error messages by the relevent lines. - View->Indented - One click Debug (granted, it's slow, but it works well and is easy to use) I could go on, but I'm losing productivity typing this message. :-)

[R.Daugherty]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
vincent wrote: "Anyway, I come from the C++ era. So this gui stuff feels much more natural to me." I did my Windows work in the Delphi IDE, so I certainly understand the value of an IDE under Windows. I coded my Java tutorial code with Ultraedit, and of course I agree with the proposition that an editor that handles a number of files makes one very productive. On the other hand, I did the same thing with XyWrite under DOS. It didn't have anything to do with GUI. AS/400 RPG programmers tend not to have many small files as in other languauges, and I accomplish the same thing by having several SEU sessions up. Granted, it's not as easy to copy code when you have to bring the particular file up you want code from within your edit session with F15, whereas in a multi-file environment you would directly cut and paste from whatever window, but that is a problem with all AS/400 work by everybody and something I addressed in my visual interface opinion pieces. In my opinion, both browsers and 5250 sessions suffer from lack of interoperability among these islands of work. IBM of course will never do anything useful, and it was a complete waste of time thinking in terms of how it may help the AS/400, but perhaps someone will do it and create a useful working experience for people. Thanks for the info, vincent. rd

[S.Mildenberger]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
Just to add to the list. Another great feature is to have several windows open to the same source member, all editable and any change in one is automatically reflected in the other views. Scott Mildenberger

[R.Daugherty]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
Scott wrote: "But, I can speak for two of us here that Code/400 has improved our productivity a great deal over using SEU." Good point, Scott, and I reflected what I think one aspect of it is just now to Vincent. It has to do with control over the file or multiple files which I did with XyWrite under DOS as well as Ultraedit under Windows. It has nothing to do with GUI. Thanks for the point, and anything that helps make each of us better programmers is a good thing. rd

[Guest.Visitor]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
My reply to statements such as "SEU should be discontinued" or "SEU has too many limitations" is this: SEU has never required multiple discussion groups, many of them monitored by IBM staffers, in order to help solve the problems that pop up. There really aren't any problems or glitches with SEU. And as far as I know, no one has ever lost code due to a crash. But, I do find times when Code/Edit is useful - when I've got a big project in the works. One of the many great features that I found indespensible was being able to download many source members for the purpose of copying code from them to the member I was working on. Ctrl-Arrowkey allowed quick movement between them all. bill

[S.Mildenberger]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
Bill, Your comment about Ctrl-Arrow key implies you were using Code with all members open in the same Ring. I much prefer opening each member in it's own ring so every member opens in a separate window. I feel this allows me to switch amongst members much easier. Scott Mildenberger

[R.Cozzi]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
I guess what I'm saying is that client-based tools (which used to be called GUI Editors, IDE and the like) are the tools that people are continuing to work on (i.e., devolop, enhance, mature, etc.). SEU will pretty much be where it is today from now on.

[R.Cozzi]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
To fix that anoying font issue, go to the Tools | Options menu and click on the fonts tab. In the font name, it probably says just "Courier" instead of "Courier New". Drop down the font list and select "Courier New" and select the fonts size you want. Then press "Make Same" and it will make everything have the same font. Since there is both an expression parser and an RPG parser, you may have to do this twice, once for "Source" and again for one of the "tokens" such as "Keywords". Font programming is a real challenge.

[Guest.Visitor]

The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU!

** This thread discusses the article: The Midrange Manager: Dump SEU! **
Howdy, Today, I finally got around to installing the CS software. It installed clean (apparently). I was able to have it ftp source down... and looked to be running as stated. Then I tried to create a project - crash. It doesn't matter whether I am trying to create a new workspace or project - I get a SrcEdit.exe application error - stating instructions at ... could not be read. Also, I looked at the eclipse site - but have been unable to identify plug-ins for RPG or CL... do they not exists, yet? Are they going to exist? TIA Daniel Bohner drbohner@existinglight.net oh, should have said: w2k - sp2