Is RPG Dead?

[M.Savino]

Is RPG Dead?

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You've got My Vote.... And you're just a few paragraph's short of your first State of the Union Address. Where do I go for a Lapel Button ?? ;-)

[Guest.Visitor]

Is RPG Dead?

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>> Build in the best 5250 to HTML converter IBM has into the EXFMT pipeline as a native interface.<<<

Man, this would go such a long way to making things better for os400! But then IBM could not sell 'websphere', which as far as I can tell, is any and every product that _may_ have a web conponent. Wouldnt' it be great to have a EXHTM command like a EXFMT command? ---Dale

[J.Pluta]

Is RPG Dead?

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Wouldnt' it be great to have a EXHTM command like a EXFMT command? Oh man, I tried to stay out of this topic. I really did. But the truth of the matter is that IBM has indeed provided you with the ability to have what is in effect an "EXHTM" command. It takes a little bit of extra work, but once you're done it's every bit as fast as 5250, and takes almost no Java to code. I can teach any competent RPG programmer enough Java to create what I call a "thin-veneer JSP interface" in less than a week. Instead of EXFMT, your program calls a "SendReceive" API to send and receive a data structure. Can you do that? On the other side of the UI, you create a JSP that include the tag <%= proxy.getFormattedField("MYFIELD") %>. Can you do that? The Java code is a bunch of statements that define the data structure: new Dc400CharacterField("WPR1USER", 30), new Dc400ZonedField("WPR1CLASS", 2, 0) That's it. You include some plumbing that does things like create data queues and submit jobs to batch in response to a user request, and you're done. The really beautiful thing about this is it's then quite easy to add all your own security stuff, such as disallowing certain IP addresses at certain times, and things like that. The point is that complaining isn't going to do it. Get up and learn enough of the new technologies so that you can use them -- that's what will change the machine, and your career! Joe

[mmurphy@starbaseinc.com]

Is RPG Dead?

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>> I can teach any competent RPG programmer enough Java to create what I call a "thin-veneer JSP interface" in less than a week...

When's the class?

[J.Pluta]

Is RPG Dead?

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Actually, I've done the full class several times over the last year or two. I also teach a one-day seminar on the subject, and I teach parts of the subject at iSeries DevCon. I've done half-a dzone one-days in the last six months, and my next seminar may be in Denver. Joe

[nandelin]

Is RPG Dead?

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Wouldnt' it be great to have a EXHTM command like a EXFMT command?

This has been requested numerous times to George Farr who heads a developer team in IBM's Toronto lab. People from within IBM and out have been asking for it. My impression is that an environment for running PHP on the iSeries, and Wizards for building J2EE interfaces to RPG servers are being given higher priority by the Toronto lab.

My suggestion would be to move forward with interfaces that Joe Pluta is providing. My impression is that they're better than anything IBM will be offering, even years from now.

[ron.hankey@pemstar.com]

Is RPG Dead?

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Ted, I was in the same boat, 20 years to retirement wondering whether my RPG skills would carry me through. Well they didn't. Last January my manager announced one day that all RPG development was to stop, no more RPG development period. The only development allowed would be web based applications. I really expected to get laid off but another programmer found a course at a local college teaching Internet development with WebSphere. We enrolled even though both of us were fairly weak in Java skills. My Java skills are still not great but I'm able to create J2EE applications and have constructed several applications in the past few months. So even with a little Java background you can be productive in just a few months. I found that I needed to learn: 1) How to use the WDSc toolset, 2) Some additional Java but not much, 3) Some Java Script. I think RPG will be around for the forseeable future in some shops but for many shops, RPG's days are numbered.

[nandelin]

Is RPG Dead?

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Last January my manager announced one day that all RPG development was to stop, no more RPG development period.

Is the goal to move off the iSeries platform altogether? Is the problem deeper than just needing new Web interfaces? Otherwise, it seems you could use a CGI toolkit, or an interface like Joe Pluta's where only very basic UI code is moved to the J2EE runtime environment.

[R.Daugherty]

Is RPG Dead?

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Thanks Mike! I hope the president in '08 does use some of my ideas. I could make a long list of hundreds of millions and billions upon billions of dollars of government software systems that continue to fail in being developed, a very long list. In fact, it is rare to read of any software being successfully rolled out since IBM and Oracle spun this web page SQL software fad out on the government. They still run on real "legacy" software like mainframe Cobol in the meantime but the Peter Principle is in full effect in the IT industry. They are clueless in their failure. I'm pretty sure they're going to get the funding plug pulled on them any time now. That's when an open source OS/400 ILE (RPG, Cobol, C++, Java) government solution will start looking real good. IBM can help by dropping the green screen tax for government AS/400's running open source. Some of our commercial vendors might want some of that action. Does anyone think our AS/400 RPG packages couldn't do anything that the federal government's software won't do now, like FEMA unable to track procurements, Homeland Security unable to track immigration, Defense unable to track security clearances, FBI unable to track cases? RPG running under OS/400 scales to meet those needs. The scandishly expensive J2EE fad that IBM has sacrificed us for just "timesout". Why should IBM and Oracle care? They just charge taxpayers more billions to try to make it work. It's the biggest ripoff in taxpayer history, and it's coming to an end. The part of IBM that invented OS/400 should be there to pick up the pieces, and AS/400 vendors who have been locked out should go open source with the government. There would be a lot of grateful taxpayers if we provided software that actually worked, and lots more paying business when they see that. rd

[R.Daugherty]

Is RPG Dead?

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Glad you like the ideas, Dale. Here's why I said 5250 to HTML in the EXFMT pipeline rather than something like an alternate display command. 5250 screens should flow out from an EXFMT buffer and be rendered in whatever interface is connected to an interactive session. If 5250, it would be current 5250 binary. If a browser session coming in through a builtin OS/400 Websphere web server (read Apache), should flow out as HTML converted either on the fly or from pre-processed conversions stored on the AS/400. Those sessions should acknowledge a command to output instead in XML with 5250 keywords or XUL. The key is that all 5250 programming we've done and continue to do emanates from a new EXFMT buffer API that generates output appropriate for the interface connection. Some may say that 5250 screens are not appropriate for the consumer public, and of course I agree. Those should be designed by professional web page designers and data merged into it by script. When I did the JOBS/400 web server, I didn't create one web page. The web page designers didn't write any RPG. The data was merged by script keywords in the HTML, or it could be JSP, but the key is that business screens and consumer screens are two different things entirely, and a rich thick client windowed screen yet another thing. But the right mix for business is 5250 terminal screens using all of its capabilities, and the user only moving their hand to a mouse if they want to. rd

[David Abramowitz]

Is RPG Dead?

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Ralph, I proposed a very similar idea in these fora some time ago. My concept was that CGI calls were unnecessarily complex. The basic setup for the display of the page could be condensed into an EXPAGE, or EXHTML opcode. Credence is lent to this concept due to the fact that most web pages are transaction driven (as opposed to event driven like windows forms). This allows a single command to write the page, and then read any input from the page. The CGI calls that perform this function currently could be used as a basis for compiler modification. In other words, it's within the realm of the possible. But I would go beyond this. A tool is needed that is as easy to use as MS Front Page for web design. Call it WDA for "Web Design Aid" if you will, or even allow the use of MS Front Page to design the aspects of the page. Eclipse, as powerful as it is, is not easy to use, and you could sit through a double feature of "Cleopatra" and "Lawrence of Arabia" waiting for the splash screen to disappear. Naturally, this is not for every application. Initially, complex pages and applications will be deemed inappropriate candidates for such a scheme. But given the fullness of time, the sublety of simplicity could surely be applied here too. KISS KISS Dave

[T.Grove]

Is RPG Dead?

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Joe, Would you ever consider doing your class as a web event? I'd love to learn what you are proposing, and have just recently become a salaried employee instead of a contract programmer. The down side is no time off for a while. I know that I'd definitely want to attend a web event. Also, they can be recorded and re-broadcast.

[J.Pluta]

Is RPG Dead?

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I don't know about a web event. It's worked best so far as a 4-day intensive seminar. Lots of theory the first day with a little hands-on, and then progressively more hands-on leading up to the actual construction of a pilot on the last day. That would be one REALLY long webcast. Joe

[Guest.Visitor]

Is RPG Dead?

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Recently I participated in Java and J2EE training offerred by my employer, a software company. They had two years invested moving from RPG to J2EE. The course began with nearly 30 eager participants. In the end, after six months, two certified. Quick training is a fast sell but the next evolution in development isn't going to bring it about or save one's carreer. Education, dsicipline, and tenacity are key. One can infer what happened at this particular software compnay, the end result is it's gone now.