Re: PHP to RPG - "tight" integration

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ah, you kids and your "legacy" moniker.  It's kind of like watching a
teenager use a cuss word for the first time.  In any case, the toolbox has
nothing to do with "legacy".
 
What it is, is a set of classes designed to make it easy to call natively
compiled programs from the VM.  Every interpreted language (and remember,
Java is interpreted) has something like this (in the Open Source world
they're called "bindings").  They allow interpreted languages like PHP and
Python to access things written in other languages.

It just so happens that the ILE architecture makes it very easy to call any
of its compiled language, and so IBM was able to implement a very fast and
flexible (and elegant) architecture that allows the JVM to invoke an ILE
program not only on the same machine but on any other machine.  Because of
this, a Java program can quickly and easily call any program written on the
iSeries.  Try that in most other "modern" languages.

For an example of the difficulty involved, try getting Subversion 1.3.2 to
run with Python 2.4 on Windows.  (HINT: It involves a hex editor and some
crossed fingers.)  And forget trying to access a Subversion repository on
another machine.

Joe

> From: Dave Odom
>
> Ah, sounds like a way to keep your foot in legacy applications and call
> them from a web front end or app.  If so, I can see how that would be
> enticing to some folks.