Re:

[Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff Crosby wrote:
> <tic>
>
> C'mon Joe, you know that's not allowed.  Everything must be done in SQL 
> or it doesn't exist.  Solving the business issue has nothing to do with it.
>
> </tic>
>   
Here's the interesting thing about that idea, Jeff.  What we've got, 
especially with the new blades, is a hunk of moderately-priced hardware 
that can run any industry standard language (such as Java or C) with a 
fully integrated SQL database, and yet, when SQL isn't enough, we can 
drop down into RPG (what I like to call assembler for the database).

The fact that you can run RPG on the box is a huge plus, just as having 
native ISAM access to DB2 is a plus.  Only the dogmatic would disagree 
(my favorite quote on this is "real programmers aren't dogmatic about 
what real programmers do").

And even if you had business reasons to not use RPG, you could use 
COBOL.  COBOL will do much of what RPG does, only in a dialect that 
isn't so proprietary to IBM.  Me, personally, I don't care how 
proprietary RPG is: it's the optional speed equipment that makes the 
machine go really fast <smile>.

Joe

P.S. And lest any MS advocates complain that it doesn't run VB.NET or 
C#, let me clearly state that I consider .Net every bit as proprietary 
as RPG.  .Net is the optional speed equipment that makes Windows go - 
well, faster, anyway.