Re: VARPG (was Design Change Requests)

[Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If I may make a comment, please.

It does take more than 20 minutes.  :)

The hardest part for me was to appreciate the significance and 
opportunities for design improvements using event based logic over cycle 
based logic.  That may be a non-issue for college trained programmers 
who are used to event vs cycle, but for an old hack its an Epiphany.



Luke Dalton wrote:
...
> Never mind that VARPG is indeed easy to use, and for an RPG programmer, it's
> about a twenty minute learning curve.  If it's not mainstream then why take
> a chance on it, seems to be the prevailing current.  
> ...
> I can only imagine that Claus Weiss must be banging his head on the wall
> every day trying to figure out why iSeries shops cry for software to easily
> create GUI-based screens on a daily basis, but fail to pick up his VARPG
> tool and use it when it's free and right there for the asking. 
>
> It defies explanation. 
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Marco Facchinetti
> Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:36 PM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Re: VARPG (was Design Change Requests)
>
> VARPG is a language and beside Ibm not spending money in it to make it
> better and competitive the only part to blame (?) are Iseries developers...
> If only more people push using it we can have a decent tool, people there in
> Toronto are really good, only they have a 0$ budget.
> It's RPG, real rpg with a GUI interface, the learning curve for an RPG
> programmer is quite short.
> About the the "thick client" problem I can only say it's a non existing
> problem. Install it on a file server (any flavour: windows, unix, ifs or
> samba) and it works. VARPG isn't so dependent from windows, it has his own
> runtime and there is no need of setup complicated environment.
>
> Marco
>
> --- Jim Franz <franz400@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> > > I don't know why VARPG can't gain traction Marco...
> >
> > 1. Because IBM rarely even mentions the product...
> > 2. Over the years it's only been casually mentioned in the trade press - a
> >
> > few articles, a few books, and as usual, many of us tried it out in it's 
> > very early days had problems.
> > 3. Because many software vendors went the other routes (c##,java,vb) so
> > they 
> > could write to more than 1 platform, and those languages were recognized
> > by 
> > the world outside of iSeries. IT buyers
> > are often looking for the most "popular" language, counting on a steady 
> > supply of (cheap) coders
> > 4. the already mentioned "thick client" maintenance issues
> > (i also wish more had adopted it. the iSeries could be far better accepted
> >
> > in the marketplace if perceived as graphical).
> > just my opinion
> > jim franz
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Booth Martin" <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 12:02 PM
> > Subject: Re: VARPG (was Design Change Requests)
> >
> >
> >
> > > I don't know why VARPG can't gain traction Marco.  I find it frustrating
> > > to see firms embrace Windows but avoid VARPG.  Where I've seen it tried,
> > > people like it.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Marco Facchinetti wrote:
> > >
> > > > --- Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Oh.  Then it is a design issue.
> > > > >
> > > > > VARPG uses a runtime environment.  If you try to use that model then,
> > > > > yes, updates would be tiresome.
> > > > >
> > > > > However the runtime is only about 15 megs.  Building it into the
> > > > > application locks the two together, and updates are no longer an issue.
> > > > > I stored the application (including runtime) on a server.  When a
> >
> > user
> >
> > > > > opens the desktop version, the desktop version checks to see if its
> > > > > still King.  If not, it replaces itself with the newer version.
> > > > > Downloading 20 megs once in a while from a server is not much of a
> > > > > burden imho.
> > > > >
> > > > > Still, the fact remains, VARPG can't gain traction.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Why??
> > > >
> > > > Marco
> > > >
> > > > __________________________________________________
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> > > --
> > > -----------------------------------
> > > Booth Martin
> > > http://martinvt.com
> > > -----------------------------------
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>
>
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