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It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

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  • #16
    It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

    I indeed do web development but on a different platform and it has different terminologies. VIEW: I use HTML to design the page. This would be your VIEW. CONTROLLER: I use VB script to capture events such as user request and result placement. Are you saying VB Script is CONTROLLER? MODEL: I then use ASP/ADO technique and write SQL statements to fetch/write data to/from MS-Access engine. Are you saying this is MODEL? In green screen, I use DDS to design screen, and workstation file data structures tells me about the events, mostly thru indicators and function keys. All to be manipulated in RPG. Now you are saying that there is no way that a workstation file can be a web page, return user request and post results? Because in case of internet, it is the other way i.e. it is the web page that directs the server? I feel clueless. Can you go to specifics prof? Or atleast point to more reading material about these concepts of yours?

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    • #17
      It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

      Beware what you ask for... rd

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      • #18
        It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

        Congratulations. You are one dinosaur that is ready for evolution. You have already taken the most difficult step that other species failed to, and did not evolve. They did not believe there was a need to evolve. You are experimenting with RPGIV. The next generation will be /free, structured programming (no GOTO), sub-procedures(no EXSR). If you survive that, C++ would be the next genration. One fine morning you will tell yourself, "Hey! Java suddenly looks easy". If you cross into the web generation, then congratulations ... you are a bird now! Fly robin fly! up up in the sky! N.B. If you use STRDBG for next ten years like you did for STRISDB, it WILL become intuitive. Rest assured

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        • #19
          It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

          Hassan: It's not my concept. MVC has been around for decades, and is commonly used in web app design. See what the Wikipedia has to say on Model-view-controller. If you need more information, follow the links at the bottom of the article. Cheers! Hans

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          • #20
            It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

            Hassan, I'll keep plugging away. STRDBG will become intuitive, eh? I sure hope so. Thanks for the encouragemenet. Hans, my career goal is to retire from this place! While I don't see anything that will change that, who knows what the future holds? So I will try playing with Dreamweaver again, and maybe CGI-dev2 since it's free. I have the POSIX environment loaded on my as400, I want to see what this new ZEND version of PHP looks like. I guess it's try a little at time and keep at it. ---Dale

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            • #21
              It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

              We've just converted part of our company to VAI and the choice was given to use GUI or green screens, and hands down, green screens won. None of the users want the GUI version, they are able to access look-up screens, help screens and so forth on the green, and for the data entry (yes we have people that actually sit and post page after page of data in the AR dept) and they have chosen to stay with the plain 5250.

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              • #22
                It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

                That's my experience too, Kit-Kat, but with other iseries packages. I only saw a demo of VAI Software 2000. And I will say that the VAI software had very good looking web page overlays, part of the demo I saw along with the 5250 base screens. The 5250 interface was excellent, a good example of what I mean by providing a better ERP interface with 5250 than what you can with web pages. rd

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                • #23
                  It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

                  Good article Bob! My job functions are slowly moving away from the iSeries. Now I am doing most of my work on GUI against Microsoft servers because that is the direction our business is headed. It has been a long time coming. Too bad for IBM.

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                  • #24
                    It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

                    I agree with the posts in regards to costs, but there are many ways to at LEAST have all of your programs be ILE RPG. Whenever you have a change or enhancement to a program, use the IBM CVTRPGSRC. This will create a new ILE RPG source member. UNFORTUNATELY the new version is not very appealing. However there is a FREEWARE tool that will convert or "enhance" the code and convert "IF's", "Moves, Z-Add, etc." to native Eval's etc. etc. It will also create standalone fields for your variables. I have used this tool for several years. I have yet to find one program that was not able to convert or that did not function after the conversion. Now some possible bad news. The tool is called JCR4MAX. It was created by Craig Rutledge. I believe it is now packaged as part of RPG Power ToolChest The version I have was distributed as open source, (see green screen below) so I assume it can be sent / used by everyone. Also there are several other commercial tools that will convert the code to ILE RPG and even free format (with some limitations). An example being Linoma Software Hope this helps..
                    Code

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                    • #25
                      It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

                      Bob, Here's another take on green-screen programming from a different perspective. Jon Udell in the July 17th issue of InfoWorld writes about a program for OS X called WriteRoom which is a green-screen approach to word processing. Yes, the screen is actually green on a black background! WriteRoom is becoming popular because it allows you to work quickly without the baggage of GUI programming. You can read the article here: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/...rategic_1.html Click here to read more about WriteRoom: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...writeroom.html The prorgam is written by Hog Bay Software. I couldn't get to their site at www.hogbaysoftware.com. The bigger point is that GUI's have become distracting and we need to go back to the green-screen mentality of simplicity. Tom.

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                      • #26
                        It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

                        When I used the term "dinosaur", I didn't mean it in terms of free vs. non-free, ILE vs. OPM, the absence of GOTO, etc. Many of us are already THERE, but the question is: Once you're there, where do you go? Is there really anywhere to go on the as/400? The web developers that I talk to aren't doing it on this platform, and if it is involved, it's merely a high-priced, although stable, data server. To them, the as/400 is just a black box---one that they aren't particulary interested in knowing anything about. I suppose the real question should be, "Is it time to throw in the towel on this architecture?" I qualify that by asking it in terms of how a programmer spends their time updating their skills. At the end of the day, even after you've written applications in ILE (and all that it entails), used SQL effectively, written some decent CGI apps, use its email capabilities, use the shell & IFS, etc., etc., you're STILL nothing but a freakin' RPG programmer no?!

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                        • #27
                          It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

                          Tom wrote: "The bigger point is that GUI's have become distracting and we need to go back to the green-screen mentality of simplicity." Note that it is possible to develop simple user interfaces using GUI's. Likewise, it is possible to develop complex and distracting user interfaces using green-screen technology. I'm sure everyone has seen examples of both! It's all in how you design your user interface, not the technology used. I like Jon's final sentence in his article: "As Unix culture knows, the richness that matters most is an emergent property of simple tools that combine in flexible ways to produce network effects." Cheers! Hans

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                          • #28
                            It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

                            I never said IBM knows how to create usable user interfaces. But I don't understand why you can't.

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                            • #29
                              It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

                              Hassan, That is my entire point. To save our a$$es in the AS/400 world, we need to make sure that not only our shop evolves, but that a large percentage of the AS/400 shops also evolve. Otherwise the numbers will continue to plummet.

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                              • #30
                                It's Time to Get out of the Stone Age

                                "you're STILL nothing but a freakin' RPG programmer no?!" Very good point. That is why instead of debating the 5250 vs GUI dead horse and after you have updated your current skills (i.e. ILE, SQL, RPG free, WDSC) its time to move toward learning new skills like HTML, CCS, JavaScript, Java, C#, PHP...... The list goes on and on.

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