Re: Native GUI (was Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch)

[Pete Helgren <Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Wikipedia! Should have gone there first.  I was carrying around the 
wrong idea.  Thanks for the clarification.

I guess the "idea" that I have been musing about has to do with "native" 
GUI and I guess I am even wrong on the use of that acronym. If I could 
scroll back, then I would replace all my references to a "native" GUI to 
read "native, HTML rendered UI", since in the vast majority of cases the 
GUI we deal with is HTML in a web browser.  Maybe there is another name 
for an HTML rendered UI rather than GUI, but that is what I was thinking.

That said, fat or thin client, if the UI generated by the System i was 
"rendered graphically" in a client side application I don't think it 
would matter to the end user as long as it performs well and is easy to 
use.  And, if the development environment for that UI was well 
integrated, similar to the way PDM/SEU and the like were integrated into 
5250 application development, I think we as developers would be better off.

There are those that would say that the UI for the web has put us there 
already and there are plenty of folks who think that WDSC is the right 
integrated environment to generate that UI.  Maybe that is as functional 
and integrated as we can get.  Since developing a more graphical UI is 
fundamentally different than developing a text based UI maybe this IS as 
good as it gets and we'll never see an environment like the integrated 
text based development I "grew up" with. If such a "native, HTML 
rendered UI" development environment WAS possible though, it would give 
the System i a "leg up" on the competition and that was the point of the 
original thread: How to get the System i more established in the 
marketplace.

As "Forrest Gump" would say: "And that's all I have to say about that".

Pete


David Gibbs wrote:
> Pete Helgren wrote:
>   
> > Web  applications are still a fat client application, in my view. 
> > Take a look at the size of the *client* to have to download to run a 
> > web application (IE,Firefox, Safari, you name it).
> >     
>
> Um, I don't think so.  A web browser is no more a fat client than a 5250
> emulator is.  It has no specific awareness of the application it's
> running.  It doesn't have to be updated EVERY TIME a logic change is
> introduced.  And, it can run a huge number of wildly differing
> applications without any change to it's core code.
>
> A fat client (also known as a thick client or rich client) is a client
> that performs the bulk of any data processing operations itself, but
> does not necessarily rely on the server.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client_(computing)#Fat_clients
>
>   
> > Most of us run (still) a fat client called a 5250 emulator and think 
> > nothing of it.  It is just the client that is needed to run that 
> > particular application.
> >     
>
> I guess you should define 'fat'.  CA/400 is 'fat' because it provides a
> significant amount of functionality besides just 5250 emulation.  To run
> applications on the System i I can run a client that is 75k (telnet.exe
> on WinXP SP2).  That's not fat (imo).
>
>   
> > IBM could develop and deploy their own fat client application to run
> > GUI's, no different than needing a "fat" 5250 emulator.
> >     
>
> Like iSeries Navigator?
>
> david
>
>