Re: Single Page Applications

On 5/23/2015 10:42 AM, Kelly Cookson wrote:

I just don't see a reason to avoid SPAs for replacing 5250 green screens when so many website are successfully using SPAs in the wild. Many people feel the experience when using an SPA is faster and more fluid than the experience when using traditional web applications. The users get a more desktop-application-like experience. A faster, more fluid, more desktop-application-like experience seems like something one might want when replacing 5250 green screens.

In my past lives, 'replacing 5250 green screens' has been a code word
for 'screen scraper'. Which isn't evil in and of itself, but the
practical results of a traditional block-mode application [1] with a web
UI has been horrible to these eyes.

So I hope that here, in this discussion, 'replacing 5250 green screens'
really means' write a whole new application from scratch.

[1] A typical 5250 block-mode application, Order Entry:
Screen 1: Enter customer number, verify customer name/address. F key to
search for customer based on name/ telephone number.
Screen 2: Display customer name/address, enter ship to information. F
key to recall previous ship to information/same as sold to.
Screen 3: Display sold to/ship to, enter product information.
Screen 3 repeats until a function key is pressed to 'finalise' the order
Screen 4: display totals, taxes, estimated ship date.

I might be able to make wonderful CSS and AJAX and convert this to an
SPA which calls the appropriate Cobol program under the covers, but this
behaviour is not remotely similar to what one experiences with say, Amazon.