RE: Platform Independence (was George is Farr from where we want tobe)

Aaron Bartell wrote on 28/03/2007 17:26:01:

Joe has a really fast architecture that marries Java and RPG.  Really 

cool

framework that takes the best of both languages.  My dislike of that
approach is that you need two knowledge sets to debug one application - 

Java

AND RPG.  Office conversation: "Bill, our Java web based order entry is
crashing on screen 12, can you take a look at it?.... Sorry, Tom, I 

can't

look at it until Junior comes back from lunch because I don't know Java. 

 Oh

and when he comes back, I go to lunch and since Junior doesn't know RPG 

you

will have to wait until 1:30pm for us to debug it together."

Aaron, I think you might be overlooking some of the value of knowing 
multiple languages.  This is easy to do if you came in to the iSeries 
world knowing multiple languages.  I think one of the dangers of being a 
devoutly "one language only" shop is that you can miss out on some very 
interesting concepts from other languages.  For example, if I had only 
learned RPG, only read RPG articles, and got most of my training through 
Common and friends, I would probably never know about associative arrays 
(aka hash tables).  While some might argue that business programming often 
doesn't need such constructs, I think that they are becoming increasingly 
important as more and more shops get in to exchanging data with other 
systems in novel (for the System i) ways such as XML.  So I guess the 
short summary of that is - do we miss out on asking for new features from 
IBM for if we're never exposed to ideas from other languages?

In the end I guess what I am trying to be is a voice of the next 

generation

of programmers (I am 27yrs old);  that has gone the route of Java and 

all

the open source candy and found that it doesn't measure up to what
businesses want and need (talking iSeries specifically).  Don't get me
wrong, I still love playing around with Java and all the cool things it 

can

offer.  But when a company wants to write home grown applications on 

their

iSeries for their staff or customers, I don't think they should have to
learn a new language to do that.  Not when IBM has the minds to develop 

the

frameworks to do it completely from RPG all running natively on the 

iSeries.

You're right - they _shouldn't_ have to new learn new languages.  It would 
be great if IBM had kept RPG in step with the GUI revolution.  However, 
IBM owns the language, and all we can do is say "this is what we want" - 
but if they decide it is not in their interest to provide a given feature, 
that's their prerogative.  All we can do is try to convince them that it 
is in their interest after all.

Perhaps it is my academic bent showing through, but I also feel that is it 
worth reiterating the "If your only tool is a hammer ..." argument. You've 
mentioned that you think Java is really great for "plumbing" types of 
jobs.  In my ideal world, all of the major programming languages would be 
available natively on the System i, and we would be able to know enough 
about each of them to write the low-level stuff in C, the text processing 
in Perl (or REXX?), use Python for rapid prototyping, etc.  Of course, I 
realize that this might be a bit of an 'ivory tower' position, but hey - 
you can't blame a guy for dreaming :)

Just MHO,
Adam

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