Re: WDSC vs. RDi

[David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe Pluta wrote:
> Boy, the semantics here are really tricky.  The bulk of WDSC was not 
> System i development.  Because it was built on top of RAD, it included 
> (but was not limited to <grin>): HTML editor, JSP editor, CSS editor, 
> JavaScript editor, web site designer, XML editor, web application test 
> environment, and on and on.

Well, from my perspective (as a System i developer), WDSC is a tool for 
System i developers.  So the *most* important components are RSE, LPEX, 
SEP debugger, etc.

The other tools: HTML editor, JSP editor, web site designer, etc, are 
not all that important to most System i host application developers.

The fact that the System i specific components are only a fraction of 
the package is meaningless ... they are the MOST important part of the 
package to a System i developer.

I would venture to say that most System i developers (RPG, Cobol, etc) 
never even looked at the non System i components.  I have, but that's 
only because I was curious.  In my daily usage of WDSC (which I use 
almost exclusively for my development now), I have *never* used the Web 
editor or it's associated components.  I do, however, use LPEX, RSE, and 
the SEP debugger (along with the Java development tooling) on a daily basis.

So, byte for byte, maybe the System i components of WDSC are a fraction 
of WDSC's functionality ... but from a usage perspective, I think they 
are the the biggest portion of WDSC.

RDi basically contains all the WDSC components a System i developer 
needs and eliminates the components they don't necessarily need (at 
least for host application development).

JMO, obviously.

david