Re: [WEB400] First Internet application ("including HTML in CGI programs")

["Brad Stone" <brad@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I understand where you're coming from Loyd.  I guess I don't
consider it a bad practice or habit unless taken to the
extreme.  When people are using DDS to create screens,
they're not thinking "Cool.. display isolation"  They use it
because it's one of the few ways to do it.

I still say if we could build DDS screens dynamically with
some markup language, many would choose to use it (although
never admit it... haha!!).  But, like I said before, HTML
and interactive screens are really two different fish, only
comparable because they both provide input and/or output.

I don't know who wrote the rule that having HTML in your RPG
or any CGI is bad.  It's not.  It's simply an opinion that
someone gave at one time.  Most likely to sell a product or
service.

I simply don't agree entirely.  Unless you're talking about
putting ALL your HTML into your RPG program.  That's when
things get ugly.  Except for the use as a teaching aid to
learn how CGI works.

The performance hit grows exponentially with all the
scanning and replacing that is going on and is dependant on
the number of replacements you are performing, the size of
the "chunk" of HTML you are performing replacements on, as
well as the data set in use (ie iterations).

I'd rather spend 2 minutes updating and compling and RPG
program (or in the case of other CGI languages that are
interpreted, just changing the code) than waste too many
resources doing replacing for everything on the web page.
Simple examples with little data you won't notice much hit,
but complex pages with a lot of data, you will.

But, we can agree to disagree on this subject.  :)  I do use
the replacement technique (I have my own replace ILE
functions) from time to time, but only for small pieces of
the display.

There's always the option of outputting data in all XML and
then using XSL to do all the dirty work.  :)  But that
option has it's limitations as well.

Brad

On Sun, 13 Jan 2002 14:49:26 -0600
 Loyd Goodbar <loyd@blackrobes.net> wrote:
> Both Reeve and Brad's arguments are similar, let me reply
> to both.
>
> I mis-spoke when I referred to DDS keywords in RPG. I
> understand you can't use
> DDS keywords in RPG, and was making a point. This makes
> an extremely clean
> interface. As long as you want to move thing around and
> reformat a screen,
> without changing/adding fields, you can do so in SDA
> without touching the RPG
> program.
>
> I guess my question becomes: If I considered the output
> formatting isolation
> good before, why pick up bad habits because I'm
> programming for the Web?
>
--snip--