RE: [WEB400] Re: Resort back to RPG?

["Eyers, Daniel" <daniel.eyers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Nathan....

If the companies strategic direction is platform independance, there may a lot 
for good reasons.  Ability to change
hardware vendors, for one.  Or wanting to take advantage of newer technology.  
Perhaps the organization has chosen Unix
and is phasing out the 400.  Dumb? maybe. Difficult, certainly, but if I can 
show a significant cost savings through
consolidating to a few central boxes v. distributed, heterogeneous machines, 
guess who gets the project.

What if I were a software company that had an application that would run on 
multiple platforms? Take SAP, for example.
It runs on Unix, Alpha, even a 400.  Wouldn't you want platform independance?  
Why support multiple versions of the
system when you can run them on *any* platform?  Cost savings?  You bet!

Say the next big thing hits the hardware market. Intel creates the Grizmo 9000, 
which revolutionizes the industry.  Only
one small catch: no backward compatibility at all.  Once the JVM is written, 
however, your company is on-board, selling
millions of units because none of your competitors can touch your 
speed-to-market.

I realize this is a midrange AS/400 forum.  I love the 400 but to assume it's 
going to be around forever is like an
ostrich, hiding it's head in the sand.  Smart shops are looking to be nimble, 
to have the ability to react quickly to
changing business needs, and deliver solutions in a timely, efficent manner.

As you can see, the decision to ensure platform independance is not arbitrary.  
I encourge solutions that are not AS/400
centric so I can migrate off the box, if neccessary.  Looking at the other 
boxes at Honeywell, it may be necessary.

dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan M. Andelin [mailto:nandelin@RELATIONAL-DATA.COM]
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2002 4:47 PM
To: web400@midrange.com
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Re: Resort back to RPG?


> From: "Joel R. Cochran" <jrc@masi-brac.com>
> I need to be platform independent and I need to
> get there in a hurry.

Joel,

Why does your application need to be platform independent?  And if the
answer is because the boss says so, why does the boss need it?  Just
curious, I am.

Have you even known of any database business application of substantial
scope that was platform independent?  Is there such a thing?  The moment
that an application generates a spool file, or uses a data queue, or calls a
system API, or incorporates a CL command, it's no longer independent.