Re: Ideas for which GUI or UI, PHP or What.. (Was: IBM i in the cloud (was social media))

I agree with Kevin that the back end can (and most likely should) remain RPG or COBOL. In fact, the thing you can most concentrate on when readying yourself for web development is getting your business logic ready. The dreaded "encapsulation" raises its head at this point - you have to encapsulate your business logic into callable modules that have no user interface.

Once that's done, you can then figure out how to deliver that to your end users. I note that Alan sort of implies that not only do you have to learn a framework, but you'll also then have to learn all of the underlying technologies such as HTML and JavaScript (and XML or JSON, and so on and so on).

As you might guess, I'd point out that with EGL you don't have to learn all that stuff, certainly not at the beginning. You can create both thin and rich UI applications without having to become an expert at any of the plumbing technologies. EGL is a true 4GL that hides most of that complexity until you become advanced enough to need to expose it. You end up learning things in this order:

1. EGL (to write the applications)
2. CSS (to apply consistent look and feel to web applications)
3. HTML (to create templates that you can use for the rest of your application)

And both of the latter technologies are enabled by some pretty powerful WYSIWYG tools. After that, it's up to you how you want to invest your time. You can use it to leverage the existing Dojo widgets. Or, if you find something indispensable in another framework, you can spend your time incorporating that widget into the EGL syntax (note that this latter approach expects you to be pretty conversant in JavaScript, but then again if you've learned enough to have that strong an opinion on frameworks, you probably already are pretty good in JS!).

No scripting languages, no XML, none of the low-level stuff that tends to obscure the real work of creating an application.

Joe


On 11/20/2010 3:29 AM, Kevin Turner wrote:

PHP is a great language, but you don't *have* to learn PHP to be able to produce a modern browser based UI for the IBMi. You can do it with RPGLE or COBOL, which may be an easier alternative than getting everyone to retrain in a new language. You will, however, have to acquire HTML, CSS and JavaScript skills. Libraries like jQuery (my favourite) or ExtJS can help simplify the creation of a rich UI. It is the client-side stuff that is important really, not the language you use on the server to deliver the content. So if you are an RPGLE or COBOL shop, why not just stick with RPGLE or COBOL ? After all, you'll have enough on your plate learning JavaScript etc.

Dare I mention the fact that there are open source frameworks out there already to help you get started on the IBMi. Frameworks are not everyones cup of tea, but if they are free, where is the harm in taking a look? You might get some things you like.

On 20 Nov 2010, at 00:33, "Alan"<steelville@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Kelly Cookson I get my AARP card this coming February.

American Association of RPG Programmers?-Nathan

AARP? No, Association of Awesome RPG Programmers... I'm going with AMAC,
or Generation America, or the United Seniors Association. I'm learning
PHP, plan to go the whole gamut... Learning helps keep your mind sharp..
Now if I can just pull away from the screen and take more walks..

My shop has 70 percent old style Cobol (new style means being able to
use CALL PROCEDURE haha). Two or three of the ones with the best
business knowledge (from seniority) will be kind of ambivalent to
learning new stuff. My sort-of-coach in the business end (reviews code
for gotchas in the code base) said most of the guys didn't know what
%parm was. I had to take it out. I adopt to shop standards so I took it
out, although I think they can learn in one minute what it means if they
came across it.

The company was considering alternatives to the present green-screen
old-code based application they have for our part of company support.
One was to change what we have, another was a 3rd party application that
used JWalk. But then came a change in CIOs and other things and that was
the end of that 3rd party.

It's all on hold though, and I think they'll come back at some point. I
would like ammunition or comments one way or the other, in case they ask
this sort-of new guy (veteran RPGLE programmer..)

Another team at the company has used JWalk to front-end, but it causes
everybody to moan and groan and there was a bit of gnashing of teeth
when we thought we might move in that direction...

Comments?

--Alan


--
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.

NOTICE: The information in this electronic mail transmission is intended by CoralTree Systems Ltd for the use of the named individuals or entity to which it is directed and may contain information that is privileged or otherwise confidential. If you have received this electronic mail transmission in error, please delete it from your system without copying or forwarding it, and notify the sender of the error by reply email or by telephone, so that the sender's address records can be corrected.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CoralTree Systems Limited
25 Barnes Wallis Road
Segensworth East, Fareham
PO15 5TT

Company Registration Number 5021022.
Registered Office:
12-14 Carlton Place
Southampton, UK
SO15 2EA
VAT Registration Number 834 1020 74.