one of the areas where ibm made a good attempt to take the lead was their HCI 
initiative for web interfacing.  sort of an SAA (remember that) for the web.

ibm though seemlingly backwards in their thought process are perhaps more 
loyal to their aged languages and as a postitive by-product those who have not 
made the transition from RPG/ii or rpg/iii to rpg/iv and ultimately /free.

think of all the packages and vendors that would be alienated.  JD Edwards, 
PRMS, etc. who have stable <grin> code on multiple platforms.

no, the 5250 stream will not support any i/o, native or otherwise that has 
that "windows" look, but it will still provide a fast, easy method for data 
entry.

and the "enhanced 5250 stream" that is no longer raster formatted, but rather 
pixelated (not to be confused with the old ladies from arscenic and old lace) 
will allow the new generation to design interfaces that they are familiar with 
and allow the old dogs to learn some new tricks.

-sarge

This has been a really interesting discussion and thanks a lot guys for your 
input.

I guess the biggest problem here is the business applications/ERPs that 
currently run on iSeries. I think regardless of the offerings of new 
technology none of the businesses will take the initiative of modifiying the 
ERPs. 
Therefore at least wouldn't the open access at least help bring the iSeries 
and other Web/SQL based technologies more interconnected?

My thinking is influenced by the situation at our work place where the current 
ERP is not supported beyond V6 by the ERP vendor and our business has at the 
moment ruled out migrating to the next ERP version simply due to the number of 
modifications that we will need to migrate from the current version to the new 
ERP version.

Regards
Sanjeewa.

hans, i dont expect the 5250 terminal to be the display terminal of choice. to 
add to what tfish said: there are so many emulators that actually work with 
windows already, ibm does not need to reinvent the wheel....they need to 
reinvent their market exposure.

with the open access being available on the iseries, it should be easier to 
develop apps for things like phones, PDA's, etc. this too, will need a 
hardware support layer on the iseries.

-sarge

<It's not 1985 anymore> Obviously we know this or we wouldn't be saying IBM 
screwed up by not giving a GUI solution YEARS AGO!  

I also don't see that 5250 would necessarily have to go away. They could have 
left that alone for compatiblity and added a GUI mode for PCs to use through 
Client Access.  

I remember PCs coming into a couple of companies I worked for because they were 
better at doing word processing and spread sheets, also we were doing payroll 
on PC.  I wrote a few PC programs back in the day, but I guarantee you that 
those same programs could be written in half the time in RPG on the iSeries. 
The pain back then was having to install on each PC one at a time (really a 
pain if I had to make changes) and every once in a while I had a PC that 
wouldn't run the program for various reasons.  

<if you think you can run a business in the year 2010 on iSeries
servers alone, you're dreaming.> Well yes we are sort of "dreaming", or wishing 
IBM had done what they didn't do so we could run our business on the iSeries 
alone.  

But yes, this is sort of nostalgia...I wish we could develop GUI applications 
as QUICKLY, EASILY, and STABLE as our green-screen RPG applications.  Soon 
there will be more nostalgia for me when no iSeries is in sight and all 
our "development" is being done on some crappy server in some undetermined 
programming and/or scripting language that will most likely take twice as long 
to write the code.  

I have said enough on the subject...if you like, you can have the last word.

T, Sarge: You're talking nostalgia. It's not 1985 anymore.

You want a GUI on the iSeries, then you're going to need dumb GUI terminals
connected directly to the machine. Are you going to spend ~$500 per GUI
terminal? (Probably more like ~$1000, or more, if you buy from IBM.) Or are
you going to spend a bit more and get desktop workstations that can run any
desktop application?

I remember when PC's started invading offices. One reason was that the IT
departments couldn't deploy the apps needed by the users fast enough. Users
could buy their apps from the local office store, and bypass their IT department.

Like I said, if you think you can run a business in the year 2010 on iSeries
servers alone, you're dreaming. In Technicolor.

I had the pleasure(?) of programming a records search application on a S/34 in
Assembler back in the old days. I was part of a crazy bunch that bought turbo
kits for 5250 keyboards that seriously accelerated the repeat rate of a held
down key so we could move around faster in SDA.

Now I'm programming Windows Mobile devices in VS.net which interact with
micro-SQL databases and talk real-time to an i over a cellular network.

My world sure changed.

I still think it was Windows programs that changed the rest of the world to
expect GUI-rich interfaces, not so much the web browser. Browsers have caught up
though.

I understand IBM not wanting to try and out-GUI Apple and Microsoft. What I
think they should have done instead is work double-hard to provide drivers like
ODBC, JDBC, ADO.net etc which deliver world-class performance between the i and
the client. And within hours of Microsoft delivering the DB access method of the
day, delivering compatible, tested updates to the drivers. Make it so the GUI
has no better server friend on the planet than the i.

It's still not too late.

wow! i've agreed with tfish and bob in the same week!!!!

we ran our entire business on a sys/34, then a sys/36 (cowards were afraid of 
a scatter-load and real database system) then later a sys/38.

we did not incorporate PCs for business except for word processing and later 
for other MS Office products.

-sarge

hans said:
And who's going to port the other desktop applications that are needed to run a
business to the iSeries? Apps like e-mail, spreadsheets, word processors, web
browsers, etc. And how much extra CPU horsepower is needed to run all the GUI
desktops in your company?

Sorry, but it is totally beyond belief to expect any company to get rid of all
their desktop computers and run totally on an iSeries. 


Wait a moment, long before pc's became popular folks ran "email", spreadsheets 
and word processing on i's predecessor (s/36). I had a company back in the 
1980's doing "email" (internally), they did spreadsheets that were quite 
complex with sspi's program and they did word processing with bword. BUT isn't 
the whole thought behind the google open office stuff is that you will need 
basically a dumb "pc" (terminal), and you will do all your apps remotely? 

I think folks have discovered having it on the desktop is NOT a cheap way to 
go. But even bigger something I have seen too many times, is that folks will 
develop spreadsheets for things that should come from the "main computer" and 
they duplicate effort and time, etc. 

With all the apps on cell phones, etc. aren't they a form of a dumb terminal in 
a sense of speaking.

chris

Hans wrote "Huh?!?".  I guess he never worked in the real world where entire 
businesses were ran on a System 36, 38, or AS/400.  We didn’t need them screwy 
servers for anything.

Apps like e-mail – we have email running on the iSeries, plus Lotus Notes.  
Spreadsheets and word processors are part of the desktop environment but 
certainly could play into the iSeries environment I guess. No one here has said 
we want to get rid of desktops!  What I have said is that if IBM had provided 
GUI on the AS/400 that we probably would have never had a need to invest in 
servers and wouldn’t be faced with shutting down our iSeries for good.  -- I 
have never seen it done, but I was told that there is even a way to run Windows 
applications on the iSeries.

It is not a waste of resources to run a GUI on a server system.  Especially if 
much of the overhead is taking place on the desktop (as I said before), or 
should I say the emulator.

Again, we should have a way to create an RPG program and a GUI front-end as 
easily as we do today.  We shouldn't have to worry about doing anything except 
compiling our program and display and our users shouldn't have to do anything 
except run the program.  

We are spoiled because of how great our language and platform has been over the 
years.  That is why I think we feel IBM has really let us down because we have 
to go outside the box and learn crap to bring GUI to our users who are wanting 
it.

T wrote: "The advantage to GUI on the server is that ONCE AGAIN the iSeries
could once again be the ONE and ONLY system really needed to run the business."

Huh?!?

And who's going to port the other desktop applications that are needed to run a
business to the iSeries? Apps like e-mail, spreadsheets, word processors, web
browsers, etc. And how much extra CPU horsepower is needed to run all the GUI
desktops in your company?

Sorry, but it is totally beyond belief to expect any company to get rid of all
their desktop computers and run totally on an iSeries. 

Again, it is a waste of resources to run a GUI on a server system. GUI's belong
on the desktop, not on a server.

of course i would like to see a native version of rpg handle native gui 
because afterall, there are programmers out there that are even older than my 
ancient behind, who still write rpgII/III.  but with a proprietary (hardware 
level access) gui, it may make for an easier transition for them to learn.

i've used ASNA and other visual rpg development environments and can even do 
HTML and calls to WinDoze programs from RPG, but a native access would be nice.

when i said proprietary, i probably used the wrong words.  what i meant was an 
environment that is actually native on the /400, isries, i5, whatever the heck 
they call it this week.

of course a better alternative for us would be for them to open their box just 
a little and let competition amongst the 3rd party-folks drive the standard 
and pricing.

-sarge

why do you need a proprietary standard for gui? I thought that html was a 
standard. Any GUI that does not involve a browser is DOA.

Now if you mean how you implement that in like RPG etc. that is a horse of a 
different color.

classic abbot and costello or three stooges move.  ibm has painted themselves 
into a corner and can't get out until the paint on the floor dries.

absolutely, ibm should have implemented gui and gotten rid of the 5250 data 
stream decades ago.  but their loyalty to what already works, the backwards 
compatibility and such prevented them from putting on their wellingtons and 
wading into the river, in my opinion.  (wellingtons are to boots in england as 
xerox is to the act of making copies)

it is much easier to emulate 5250 in gui than it is to fake gui in 5250.

i think it is late in the game, but ibm does need to come out with a gui 
standard, whether it be proprietary or thin client...it needs to be done.

there are products out there that will allow you to make a gui-like interface, 
but the overhead required makes it inefficient to place into mass usage 
without increasing horsepower and memory to extreme levels.

with a proprietary gui from ibm, you would still require more horsepower, 
undoubtedly, but as a proprietary product, you at least get interfaces that 
are at the hardware level, not just layers upon layers of software of thin 
client product.

-sarge

H:  Like I said, I have my opinion, you have your OPINION, and their is the 
reality that we both live in.  I am not going to turn this into another 
POINTLESS debat or pissing contest. 

I know that what we have now is pretty much "standard" for server systems (with 
no GUI), except for actual PC based servers (or Windows servers as you put 
it).  

The advantage to GUI on the server is that ONCE AGAIN the iSeries could once 
again be the ONE and ONLY system really needed to run the business. And, my 
feeling is that RPG and DDS display files have servered the business community 
well, even better than other platforms and languages based on what I've seen in 
the past.  Therefore I have always felt, and always will feel, that IBM "could" 
have come up with a native GUI solution a long time ago.  I remember writing a 
series of client server programs for our customers to use back in the 90s and 
thinking that PC Support (Client Access now) could be modified or built onto to 
allow something like HTML (or perhaps new DDS keywords) to be coded on a source 
file like QHTMLSRC for an application along with the display file.  Then user 
could flip a switch to run the GUI version of the application if they wanted.

As for overhead related to GUI, well WE don't get to make those decisions.  But 
I would think most of the overhead would be on the desktop PC running the 
emulator.  You see they really didn't need GUI supported on dumb terminals to 
be successful.

The reality is that we will be doing GUI in the future and the database will 
not be running on the i.  The other reality is that support for these 
applications and development times will sky rocket compared to RPG running on 
the i.

Sure, Windows servers are the exception. But having a GUI on the server is no
advantage. Do you really want the overhead of GUI support bogging down your
servers? That is, if your shop has six or seven figures worth of server
hardware, can your shop justify the expense of supporting the extra hardware
needed to run GUI on its servers?

T: How exactly do you propose to add a GUI to the iSeries? Through some sort of
new dumb terminal device? Or some thin client? What protocol do you want to see?
Some beefed up 5250 stream? X? HTML? Or something new and proprietary? What
business case is there?

Look, what we have now is pretty much standard for server systems: No GUI on the
box, admin access to the system via workstation based GUI tools, and
applications making requests into the servers. 

Sure, Windows servers are the exception. But having a GUI on the server is no
advantage. Do you really want the overhead of GUI support bogging down your
servers? That is, if your shop has six or seven figures worth of server
hardware, can your shop justify the expense of supporting the extra hardware
needed to run GUI on its servers?

<The i is a server system, optimized for high volume transactions. It will
never be a desktop system>   You are telling us things we already know.  You 
are saying all this because we believe that IBM SHOULD have delivered a native 
GUI solution a long time ago.  You are also telling us that you don’t think GUI 
has a place on the system and that there is no strong demand for it.

I disagree and I will save you some time I will never agree so don’t waste your 
time trying to convince me.  

There is only one reason why this awesome server system cannot do everything 
that a “desktop system” can do, plus a lot more.  There is only one reason why 
this “server system” cannot also do GUI.  The one reason is that IBM wasn’t 
smart enough to see that companies would want it so bad that they would turn 
their backs on their server system.  

The i is a server system without a GUI interface, optimized for high volume 
transactions.

So there you go, you have your opinion and I have mine.  Then there is the 
reality that I have seen for several years now I have seen strong demand for 
GUI for several years now IBM add things like the IFS, Linux, and other great 
technology into the system.  But from what I have heard from those that really 
matter (my users, my managers, people in user groups), if it isn’t GUI then 
it’s “legacy” and the perception is that legacy is not good.

So forget our opinions, here is some fact:  Management knows that GUI can be 
done, but they also feel that it’s more cost effective just to switch to just 
one platform that can do it all and get ride of the iSeries, along with us 
RPGers, in exchange for “better” systems in servers and all the GUI they could 
ever want.

Now I realize that there are those companies that will hang on to their iSeries 
and use them it as their server system as you say.  But this will hurt the 
platform as much as not having a GUI interface because the demand for software 
developers will continue to drop.

Bob: The i is a server system, optimized for high volume transactions. It will
never be a desktop system. There will never be enough demand for it, and you'll
never see the popular desktop applications ported to it, like you see on
Windows, OS X, or Linux.

((This reminds me of a story: In the early 1980's, a co-worker and I visited a
former RPG compiler developer in his office in the Rochester Lab. We asked him
what he was working on. He glanced over at a PC in the corner of his office and
said he was working on the S/38 Model 1. I don't think that product was ever
released.))

Look, if you want a GUI on the i, it's going to look an awful lot like a
browser-based thin client anyways. (Do we need yet another proprietary device
type?) And since most office workers have a PC on their desks, you might as well
use those to access the we-enabled apps running on the i. Or use the 5250
emulator to access those apps. And system admins can use GUI-based tools on
their workstation to administer their farm of i servers, just like programmers
use GUI-based tools to administer their Linux or Windows servers.

Now then, your #3 is a sore point for me. In the early 1990's, Microsoft screwed
over IBM, and yet IBM still ships a lot of software products that only run on
Windows. Sure, IBM has made some noise and generated positive press in the open
source community by claiming to support Linux. But where are all the Linux based
products? Why isn't IBM pushing Linux more? Perhaps because there's more money
to be made in supporting Windows contracts?

I think the key disconnect with the low-level software developer at IBM and the
 the AS/400 user, the Client and the Server are the same box.  The only reasons
people are using Windows PC's to access AS/400 applications are:

1) They have to--dumb terminals are gone
2) There is no GUI-enabled version of OS/400 that could be used on a desktop
sized computer.
3) We've gone a generation who now expect Windows as the Client and IBM is
usually a generation behind on their thinking, so now they will start pushing
Windows like crazy. 

Okay, that last one was <tic>.

Hans, 

>>Also, is it not possible today to write HTML apps on the iSeries?


Nope. You can't. There is no browser on the operating system.

i did not mean that they drive the OS, per se, but they are definately like 
mice.

when you get a better mouse, you have to build a better mousetrap, which in 
turn produces better mice.

-sarge

Sarge,
No one really said that it was "up to the developers to decide 
that gui should be part of the o/s".  However, if GUI was part of the os then 
we would have another option available to us...most likely a BETTER option than 
what we have today.

Like you said...they missed the boat...or as our CIO says, this boat is sinking.

whether ibm missed the mark or not, it is not up to the developers to decide 
that gui should be part of the o/s, its the users who drive the need for 
updated and expanded capabilities.

i've been green-screening since 1983, but gui has become an intergral part of 
my bag of tricks as my clients expected "pretty little windows" as the price 
of PCs and MACs went down and they saw a whole 'nother world.

although i tend to agree with bob (this time ;\) missed the boat.

-sarge

neil,
I agree, but IBM has missed their opportunity to allow the iSeries to function 
as the client (outside of green-screen) and this has diffently hurt the 
platform.  If a company is running their user interface on servers then why not 
move their database to that same server and cut costs?  

There is no doubt that if the iSeries could handle both client and server side 
of today's required applications we wouldn't be having this conversation and I 
believe there would be more RPG + iSeries shops surviving today.

T: I don't understand what you're saying.

Look at Linux: It's used in a lot of servers, right? Does Linux need a GUI to
run a server? 

Also, is it not possible today to write HTML apps on the iSeries?

I think Hans key phrase was "server system".  A server handles data in, out 
and batch processing.  Accessing the data can be via any interface that is 
able to talk to the server.  But in this day and age the server is not 
expected to provide the user interface, the clients do.

<You don't need a GUI on a server system.>  Obviously we do!  That is a big 
reason the system is dying a slow death.  You can say all day long that it 
doesn't need native GUI, in the end it's not your opinion that matters.  We 
should be able to develop GUI screens on the iSeries (using HTML maybe) and run 
the applications through Client Access as we do today.  

The bottom line is that we cannot, and never will be able to.  This is one of 
the top 3 reasons we are leaving this platform behind in the near future...and 
from what I've seen servers are not superior to the iSeries.

Bob wrote: "... Rochester made the wrong decision in the 1990s to NOT do a GUI
for this platform's OS."

You don't need a GUI on a server system.

Alternatively, looking at it from a different perspective: i has a GUI. It's
programmed using HTML.

In my opinion, the big design decision that's causing i programmers so much
grief is the 5250 protocol. Workstation files work in a way almost totally
opposite from the way web apps work. Servers normally work by accepting requests
from clients and returning a response. But in RPG workstation files, you have
one invocation per user, and the program controls the flow of user interactions.

Frankly, I don't think IBM is doing anyone any good by encouraging the use of
RPG file operations to do web apps. The normal web request/response model isn't
difficult to understand. By taking this detour, I'm afraid IBM may well be
missing the boat with respect to web programming.

There is no COBOL edition and the feature requires Compiler changes to enable
it--so users can't just use the RPG Edition.

ROA:RE is simply a plumbing kit that without proper training/skill and monthly
utility fees, is just a bunch of bits that, by itself offers the average
end-user RPG shop Zero benefits.

Hans, I think the advantage of this thing is that RPG programmers can continue
to avoid learning new things while potentially getting better results; provided
their Employer has pony'd up the cash for the 3rd-party conduit as well as the
plumbing kit itself (yes, you have to buy both pieces).

But this isn't the fault of the RPG programmers nor caused by them; it is
because Rochester made the wrong decision in the 1990s to NOT do a GUI for this
platform's OS.

More (or better) details are available on the Rational Software website:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/rational

Yes, but are they not also doing the Cobol edition?

T: Well, technically, it's called "Rational Open Access: RPG Edition". Used with
RPG, it must of course fit into the RPG I/O model. Right?

Hans,
You wrote "Your calls must fit into the RPG I/O model".  I think I remember 
hearing a while back that Open I/O (now called Open Access) will work for Cobol 
as well.  Not a big deal, just wanted to mention that.

This is what I wrote in another forum:

Here's the way I see it: Open Access provides a different way to call a
procedure, but with a few key differences from CALL: 1) Your calls must fit into
the RPG I/O model; and 2) your procedure invocation goes through a few extra
layers of procedure calls under the covers.

Why the excitement? I'm not sure I understand. If it's to help web-enable
existing apps, don't we already have that with WebFacing?

If it's to help code new web-enabled apps, isn't it better to design your app to
fit better with the web model? That is, shouldn't apps be written from the point
of view of clients making calls into the app code?

Or is the purpose of Web Access simply to generate some buzz about RPG?

As I've opined elsewhere, this leaves me rather pessimistic about RPG's future.
This seems like an unfortunate diversion from what could have been done to
support and improve web-enablement. 

It's called Open Access (OA).

It is suppose to allow RPG programmers to support other types of "devices" 
using the RPG language. It's similar to Special Files, but it can be used with 
any file type allowing you to use the conventional operatoins such as READ, 
WRITE, CHAIN, EXFMT, etc. to interface with devices such as the IFS, browsers, 
printers, and many other types of devices.  It could also be used to process 
data in spread sheets and XML documents.

This feature is probably not going to be used so much by the general RPG 
community.  It seems to me that this capability is aimed at third-party 
software vendors and open-source providers allowing them to integrate their 
offerings into the RPG language in ways that were previously difficult or not 
possible.

There is an extra fee for the additional runtime support for Open Access. 
Rational has said that the fee will be moderate, but I don't know at this time 
what the dollar amount will be.

http://forums.systeminetwork.com/isnetforums/showthread.php?t=97681

Recently I saw an article about "Open IO" which said it will be possible to do 
other database access such as SQL server from within RPG programs and would be 
available in V7 or V6. But I could not find anything on this topic on IBMs 
website. Do you have any information on OPEN IO ? 
Regards,
Sanj