Re: RPG as Web service

[Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx>]

> From: "Wintermute, Sharon"
> They want to use RPG and the i5 as a web service.  Anyone
> have any recommendations on redbooks to start looking at?

Sharon,

I thought you might have a chance for an in-depth discussion on this list.  Booth Martin recently posted a question on one of the other lists about a Web portal he was looking at.  He got some good feedback, but less than what I thought the topic deserved.  One point in that discussion that struck me was that Microsoft had implemented a Web services interface to their product - SharePoint, instead of exposing the database through the traditional ODBC (or equivalent) interface.

My initial, unspoken reaction was almost incredulity.  Why would they do that?  Soap based Web services are a lot slower than traditional ODBC, for example.

On the other hand, Mike Cunningham pointed out that he'd like to access the Sharepoint database from IBM i based applications, which is one point in favor of exposing the database through Web services.

We all know that Web services are growing, and that Microsoft and IBM are investing in them, but IBM has chosen to position Java as its base-line language  for Web services.  I just think there needs to be more support on the RPG side of the fence.

Nathan.