IBM development (was RE: SOM/DSOM & ENT magazine DB server poll) -- MIDRANGE-L

Guys,

| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of jpcarr@tredegar.com
| Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 12:09 PM
| Subject: RE: ENT magazine DB server poll
| Importance: High
|
| Thank you Buck.  ( I voted early and often).  It should mildly confuse the
| ENT people.
| This is the type of response we should hit all feedback areas with.
|
| My recent endeavor has been joining an HP3000 list to help them "Discover"
| migration alternatives  so to speak.  Hee hee
|
| If anyone wanted to try,   here is the link
|
| http://www.interex.org/cgi/lists.cgi?list=hp3000-l

<aside>
John,  I'd also like to thank Buck, who deserves more accolades than he got,
for following your outstanding example.

And THANKS for the link to the HP3000 list...!  Didn't join yet, but this is
JUST what I was looking for...!
</aside>


|
| Again,   Read this article it's good
|
| http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/12/17/011217hnintegration.xml
|


All the comments below are ALL RIGHT ON TARGET (IMHO)...

Except I disagree with Al, in one small respect.  I rarely find that you
can't have it both ways.

IMNSHO, IBM doesn't know how to spend their development dollars...  I
started a long tirade yesterday on this subject.  Here's a snip of (again,
IMNSHO) a few of the salient points:

Ya know, though...  I re-read the article on IBM's initiative.  Re-read my
post on the "RE: Correction - Future - IBM connects its software layers -
Xperanto" thread.  Went back and found InfoWorld article last week about
Xperanto
(http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/12/13/011213hnxperanto.xml?1213
thpm).

I'm pretty skittish about all this.

I have serious reservations that the market will EVER accept something like
Websphere, as the UNIVERSAL middleware to deploy applications on.  It
APPEARS to me that this is the strategy.  I try to NEVER say "never"...  So
I'll just say I'd be stunned speechless (and that doesn't happen often...;-)
IF (big if) the "Open" Source community doesn't end up eating IBM's lunch,
in the middleware arena.  But I firmly believe that the market will NEVER
accept one vendor providing the framework to develop apps on, because of the
experience with the MicroHard legal/ethical/moral monopoly.

What I'm not sure about is whether my recollection of previous attempts, at
these kinds of grand schemes, has overly influenced my judgment about the
prospects.  I remember SAA...  I remember OS/2...  I remember WorkPlace
shell...  (Now, at least IBM brought OS/2 to market and sustained it and
still sustains it to some extent.  But it was swallowed whole by the
MicroHard juggernaut.)  And having seen enough of these things come and go..
Well, like I said, I'm pretty skittish about these latest efforts.

I look at this quote in the previous link:  "Mattos continued that Xperanto
will be the materialization of IBM's work on a number of Web
services-related standards, including XQuery, XML Schema, UDDI (Universal
Description, Discovery, and Integration), SOAP (Simple Object Access
Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and WSFL (Web Services
Flow Language)."

Now what I think is:  Lord have mercy...!  HOW MANY NEW PARADIGMS AM I GONNA
HAFTA LEARN, TO GET ANYTHING USEFUL OUT OF ALL THIS...?!?  And I remember
how some of the grand plans IBM's laid out have never come to full fruition
(or even partial, in some cases).


That's why I'm skittish.  And I think there's a better way.  IMV, IBM
should:
a) give up trying to politically negotiate good systems design
b) quit spending so many resources trying to get optimal performance
c) use the market and, in particular, this list to see what REALLY flies in
TRW


John/anyone:  What am I missing?


jt


| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Pete Massiello
|
|
| --
| [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
| Al,
|
|     I agree with you 100%, yet there are people that would complain for
| the exact opposite reason that the AS/400 was not jumping on the new
| technologies nor adapting the new stuff quick enough.  Unfortunately,
| its hard to please everyone.
|
|     Think back years ago when everyone was TCP/IP, and the AS/400 was
| SNA, and could not even spell IP.  Now, it has a great offering in the
| TCP world.
|
|     SOM/DSOM was an absolute abortion, and the lesson should be printed
| up and given to every new IBM development and marketing employee in the
| company.  Its IBM's version of "New Coke".
|
|     JMHO
|
|         Pete
|
| barsa@barsaconsulting.com wrote:
|
| >Don,
| >
| >What you are saying is consistent with my feelings.  IBM now adds the
| >technology de jour to the system, without taking the time to determine if
| >it is viable.
| >
| >I the olden days, IBM would wait to see that a given technology
| would make
| >it, and then add it to the system.
| >
| >As a user community "we" (but, not I Batman) would say to IBM that the
| >AS/400 was slow to market.  IBM's contention is that they waited
| and got it
| >hardened before it's released.  Now IBM's done an about face.  They bring
| >out the technology de jour, and harden it up in the field.
| >
| >You just can't have it both ways.
| >
| >                    Don
| >
| >
| >As I recall at a west coast COMMON, Jarosh got a ear full from at least
| >one person that had a sizeable inventment in SOM/DSOM and IBM seemed
| >rather ambivalent when he complained about having the rug pulled out from
| >under him...  Perhaps that's why I haven't seen him at any COMMON's of
| >recent history....
| >
| >
| >
| >>While I'm on the topic, I don't take every recommendation from IBM as
| >>gospel truth.  A very senior IBM exec said to me many years ago, that if
| >>
| >I
| >
| >>don't immediately drop RPG, and start doing all of my programming in SOM
| >>and DSOM, that I would be bankrupt in five years.
| >>