From: Aaron Bartell
The limitation in all of this in my mind is DSPF DDS
specs ... Can anybody think of a way they could be
extensible?
Well, IBM controls DDS, and the corresponding workstation interface, and I/O opcodes, and ILE compilers, and the 5250 data stream. So I'm not sure what you expect. Talk to IBM?
As much as I appreciate and use green-screen applications myself, I think the ultimate answer is to wean ourselves off 5250 in favor of HTML, and somewhat more intelligent clients, using JavaScript, CSS, and the DOM. Evan Harris suggested going with a Rich Client like Flex or Silverlight. I'll steer clear of that, but understand the need for a paradigm shift.
A number of green-screen developers resist the paradigm shift, and call for IBM to make it easier, but will ultimately need to make some sort of transition.
To reiterate an earlier post, Pete Helgren had a good idea about helping end-users make the transition by offering a browser-based runtime environment with a menu system that enabled access to both 5250 applications and new Web applications, running within the same context. However, we never arrived at a really good solution for hosting both.
We used the tn5250j applet, but that had a number of drawbacks. A JavaScript 5250 emulator [for lack of a better name], like the one Niels is talking about, would probably be more seamless.
Nathan.
midrange.com
