Re: RPG and AJAX was->RE: How do I create a webpagethat.... -- WEB400

> From: Bob Cozzi
> 
> >>My point is that AJAX is a technology looking for a reason.
> I'll refrain from my initial reaction to this comment, but in a nutshell,
> huh???

People enamored of AJAX will use it where it is not appropriate.  This will
cost their clients money.  This is a bad thing.


> But AJAX will compete with it, and to the point where in a year or less
> I will probably replace my JSP/RPG perspective with AJAX/RPG.

I don't understand this.  AJAX is simply the ability to make an asynchronous
request.  It is server-agnostic; it will speak to JSP as well as CGI.  The
reasons for using JSP over CGI are just as valid in a browser client that
has AJAX as one that does not.


> Ajax has been around for years. It is just that an author (James Garrett)
> wrote
> an article on it a little over a year ago and decided to coin the phrase
> AJAX.

Yup.  As I've written previously, AJAX is just a cool new phrase for the
existing XmlHTTPRequest, which was created about 10 years ago for the
Outlook webmail client.


> Suddenly a light bulb turned on in everyone's head. Granted that bulb did
> not
> make them AJAX experts, but at least it is helping to stir interest in
> GUI-izing
> applications--specifically for the 400.

Bob, you're losing me.  I've been GUI-izing applications for fifteen years.
First it was screen scrapers, then it was client/server, then it was the
browser.  AJAX is but a blip on that particular historical chart.


> The point about it being difficult technology is ridiculous. It is
> difficult but
> if you're a programmer and not just a code-stealing-clerk you can figure
> it out.
> APIs, C, MI and other things are complex too, and I see your point (or was
> it
> Scott's) that the right tool for the right job should be advocated, unless
> it is complex?

No, the point was simple: the right tool for the right job.  Don't use the
shiny new hammer when the old screwdriver was the right tool.  And the crack
about code-stealing-clerks is simply mean spirited.  I know LOTS of really
good RPG programmers who will never learn OO, and lots of procedural
programmers will never get their heads around either HTML or event-driven
programming, which is essentially what AJAX is: event driven HTML.


> Difficulty is the eye of the beholder. If I say that I don't advocate Java
> because it is too complex, slow and resource hungry, Joe might think
> otherwise
> because he's familiar with Java and lives with it daily.
> For me, CGI/RPGIV and now AJAX are where I live now and things aren't all
> that
> complicated.

Actually, I disagree with you because you don't differentiate between large
enterprise Java applications and the very thin JSP Model II code that I
advocate.  I equate the learning curve for the 1000 or so lines of Java code
required to implement JSP Model II roughly equivalent to learning how to
properly implement subprocedures in RPG.

Joe