[WEB400] Re: CGI URL

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Anton Gombkötö wrote:
> And we have the treasure of ILE and should be able to use it without the
> need to change the language. Yes, Java and Python and whatever exotic might
> be great and by typing just a genius abbreviation one could write something
> that does a lot - but i think there are a lot of programmers in this small
> planet that are able to write programs today and would be able to write
> decent CGI programs tomorrow (not next year, if ever) if they had more
> support instead of "you're using the wrong language".
I agree!  But strictly speaking, it's not really *my* job to teach
iSeries programmers how to properly code RPG CGI programmers. There
are others who've taken on that particular role.

But in this particular case, I *have* offered some code to the RPG
community. Check out this tech tip at the MCPressOnline site:
http://www.mcpressonline.com/mc?50@251.uUecaBRpXUy.3@.6ae37704

I suppose what I'm really bitching about is this: Why aren't the RPG
CGI experts pointing out the need to be concerned about issues like
escaping text in HTML documents and properly URL-encoding query
strings? (Not to mention other issues like properly validating *all*
query string input.)

Maybe perhaps I should be pushing RPG more. But there *are*
quantitative and qualitative differences between different tools,
and some tools are clearly better for certain tasks than others.
Just as there are good reasons for using RPG for certain tasks,
there are good reasons for using other languages for other tasks.
One valid reason for using RPG may well be that RPG is the only
language known by your programming staff!

Cheers!  Hans