Re: New COMMON Conference

[Scott Klement <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FWIW.... I agree with your users.  When I see green screen, I go 
"ewwwwww", too.

However, I don't like that you are associating GreenScreen=IBMi, and 
GUI=Windows.

You can (and should!) write GUI apps on IBM i.  I've been telling people 
to do that for 10+ years.  Your users shouldn't know or care where the 
data resides... what they should know/care about is that it's stable, 
and always there when they need it.  And IBM i excels at that.

Take iPhone, iPad, Android phones, Blackberries...   all easy to use GUI 
interfaces, none of them are Windows in any way shape or form.  How 
about XBox, Wii, PS3... all easy to use GUI devices, no Windows involved.

IBM i can be a major player in that world too, using GUI technologies 
like web.  The only reason you still code green screens is because you 
(or someone else in your environment) has made that choice.

Note that we actively discourage green-screen sessions at COMMON.  (Much 
more so than Richard's .NET sessions!)


On 8/16/2012 3:51 PM, Gerald Kern wrote:
> I understand completely Scott... and I know that Common is pretty 'IBM
> centric'.
>
> Our business is in a growth spurt and we have new users coming from windows
> platforms and they see our green screens and say 'ewwwww'...
>
> They are the 'what I know is what I like' crowd, and they don't give a hoot
> about the tech behind the scenes. I read Nathans's article earlier this
> week and kudos to him for doing such a fine job of modernizing apps and
> keeping everything on one platform. But in healthcare we have so many
> disparate systems running - some on the i, some in browsers, some in MS SQL
> environments, and some practice specific solutions and users like the look
> and feel and intuitiveness of what they've learned using windows. And when
> we suggest developing new apps they wonder why they can't have the windows
> look and feel. That's not to say we've decided to go down the .net path,
> but only I've been asked to explore the possibilities.
>
> One of my first responses to him when he asked about .net was that I told
> him I quit writing MS Access applications after Office 2k came out because
> starting with Access95 and then Access97 and then Access2k, every time I
> upgraded office I had to rewrite those apps because the upgrade broke them
> - and I certainly don't want that hassle if that's the case with Visual
> Studio and .net.