Re: Next assignment - Reports

[Pete Helgren <Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"but introducing what I like to call a "simplicity layer for 80% usage" 
goes a long way towards greater adoption of a tool or API."


This is exactly right.  You and Scott Klement have done a great job of 
wrapping either Java or C routines into something an RPG programmer can 
understand.  And, yes, if you want to roll your own from the "native" 
API's, you easily could.  But I find that sometimes an RPG programmer 
will just find the RPG prototypes all the documentation they need to 
make a solution work.

In my case, I wrapped the Jasper API's with some simplified Java API's 
of my own to make things even simpler. That means I can be even lazier 
by only providing RPG wrappers for my API's (at least at the 0.4 
release).  I would expect that folks who need a little more granularity 
will add their wrappers to the project over time.

Could you take another direction and use more native RPG techniques to 
generate the PDF,XLS,TXT,ODT,HTML,RTF out types.  I guess so.  But you'd 
probably be wrapping some other API's to do that.  Some of the Java 
stuff is so mature and complete, wrapping them with RPG makes perfect sense.

In particular Aaron, your idea of having the JVM invoked only once is a 
great idea.  I can't wait to implement that in my own project.

Pete


Aaron Bartell wrote:
> > This is the part I don't understand.  If the XML file contains data source
> >     
> definitions, SQL query definitions, report layout definitions, and
> Javascript for handling special data munging and layout requirements, then
> what would be the purpose of RPG?  Just to call the runtime engine to
> generate the report?  Pass parameters?
>
> The RPG portions that I write for my open source projects usually entail
> doing a lot of Java wrappering of an existing API (i.e. JavaMail,
> JFreeChart).  I wrapper them in a way that makes them more easily called
> from the RPG environment through keyed data queues.  This route also has a
> huge performance/resource benefit because there is only a single JVM running
> on the system for all users.  The RPG side is very minimal in nature and is
> mostly used to prime some sort of data medium (i.e. physical files) with
> data through RPG sub procedures.
>
> To some it may not appear as though RPG wrappers are adding much benefit vs.
> calling the Java API's directly, but introducing what I like to call a
> "simplicity layer for 80% usage" goes a long way towards greater adoption of
> a tool or API.
>
> HTH,
> Aaron Bartell
> http://mowyourlawn.com
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 8:22 AM, Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>   
> > > Aaron Bartell wrote:
> > > I have been looking to create an open source reporting
> > > project based on the Eclipse BIRT stuff.  Basically you could
> > > have business users build the report in Eclipse and then
> > > upload the report definition to the iSeries.
> > >       
> > I stepped through the Flash demo of the BIRT designer and saw the
> > familiar metaphor of defining data sources (SQL Queries), then dragging
> > and dropping data source elements onto report bands (header, footer,
> > groupings, detail, etc.).  I understand that the designer creates an XML
> > document containing data source definitions and report layout
> > definitions and also allows users to write Javascript which can be
> > interpreted by the runtime engine to handle special data and report
> > formatting requirements.
> >
> > Most of this was intuitive to me because the layout definitions are
> > similar to HTML, and I've used a number of PC based query and report
> > design tools over the years.  One difference was that Javascript is
> > interpreted by the runtime engine on the server and used to handle
> > special layout and data munging requirements.
> >
> > I understand how the XML (data source and report layout and script
> > definition) file could be uploaded to the server.
> >
> >     
> > > From there a Java component could be written that accepts
> > > input from an RPG process to occupy the BIRT report with
> > > business data.  This is similar in concept to my RPGChartEngine
> > > tooling (http://mowyourlawn.com/RPGChartEngine.html).
> > >       
> > This is the part I don't understand.  If the XML file contains data
> > source definitions, SQL query definitions, report layout definitions,
> > and Javascript for handling special data munging and layout
> > requirements, then what would be the purpose of RPG?  Just to call the
> > runtime engine to generate the report?  Pass parameters?
> >
> > Nathan.
> > --
> > This is the Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries (WEB400) mailing list
> > To post a message email: WEB400@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
> > visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/web400
> > or email: WEB400-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
> > at http://archive.midrange.com/web400.
> >
> >
> >