Re: Single Page Applications

Kelly,

Let me know if I'm oversimplifying.. but... it sounds like they're set on
.Net. Lets say they are.

Then it sounds like the IBM i side of things just needs to get the data to
the .Net applications (via web services, data mirroring, stored procedures,
etc.. etc..)

Maybe you should be asking them "how do you want us to get the data to your
.Net applications?" And then work out if it's viable on your end with
COBOL.

If they want to send data selection parameters to a web service app on the
IBM i that returns JSON (or XML, or something else) that should be work
fine.

Brad
www.bvstools.com

On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Kelly Cookson <KCookson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I have a proposal out to use CGI COBOL in our shop. I don't think it's
going to be accepted.

We've been running our corporate web site on ASP.NET (and accessing the
iSeries as needed) for over 12 years now. We also have a number of custom,
in-house web sites written with ASP.NET and accessing the iSeries as
needed. The question is what are we going to use to start developing web
and mobile applications instead of 5250 green screens.

The question I'm being asked is why would we want to have two ways of
developing web and mobile applications? That means we will have to maintain
two sets of legacy applications and maintain sufficient staff with the
right skills. Add that to the demonstrated success over more than a decade
at using the ASP.NET approach. So why in the world would we want to add
COBOL CGI to the mix? That's the obstacle I have to overcome to sell a CGI
COBOL approach, or an IBM i Integrated Web Services approach, or any
approach other than ASP.NET.

Our development teams are organized by lines of business. So the browser
UI and SPA developers on the client side, and the ASP.NET web application
and services developers on the server side, will actually be on the same
team. The team is responsible for end-to-end application development for
their lines of business. So pointing fingers at each other gets us nowhere.
I think that will be a non-issue for us.

Thanks,
Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Raul A
Jager W
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2015 8:53 AM
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Single Page Applications

SO, when something does not work as expected, or fais, you can bounce
blame betwenn two teams.

I think Nathan sugested using Cobol, this will be by far the best
alternative.
More reliable, less downtime, less cost, scalable, easier to develop,
easier to debug, faster, better security...

_______________________________________________________________________
On 05/27/2015 01:02 PM, Kelly Cookson wrote:

I would suggest that client-based frameworks such as Angular JS
should not entirely replace server-based frameworks.

In fact, this appears to be where our shop is heading.

Our shop appears to be heading towards a mix of SPAs and tradition

server-side web applications using ASP.NET--with the .NET Data Provider to
access DB2 files and stored procedures on the IBM i.

And, instead of having individual COBOL developers create end-to-end

solutions, it looks like we might divide responsibilities between: (a)
coding browser UIs and SPAs on the client side, and (b) coding traditional
web applications and RESTful services on the server side. So, in terms of
web and mobile development, some of COBOL developers would become
client-side developers and some would become server-side developers (on
windows servers). It's a different approach for us than individual
developers creating the 5250 green screens and the business logic behind
them.

Thanks,
Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: WEB400 [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nathan
Andelin
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2015 11:33 AM
To: Web Enabling the IBM i (AS/400 and iSeries)
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Single Page Applications

I think you are suggesting that returning JSON data is not as safe
and efficient as returning the html itself. The latter is what you
would be doing in a traditional cgidev2 application, but we have
dumped that method (although it is still supported) in RNS 6.

Of course Brad can speak for himself, but I don't think he was

suggesting that one approach was safer or better than the other; just that
there are many alternatives for generating browser pages, including
server-based and client-based frameworks/techniques.

I would suggest that client-based frameworks such as Angular JS should

not entirely replace server-based frameworks. You might continue to use
server-based techniques to generate HTML reports (stream files), transform
them into PDFs, and stream either format to browser clients.

You get a much more efficient process, and a much faster development
time, if you use the data model approach (basically the JSON) with
two way binding on the visual components. Now the developer can just
arrange components on the page and bind certain elements to data model

properties.

Could you be more specific about the efficiency gains and developer

productivity? Are you suggesting that client-side tools and utilities
streamline development? If so, then how?

The model gets exchanged between the client and the server, and the
RPG part of the process is now lightweight compared to some of the
complicated
cgidev2 programs we used to have.

I understand that, because browser page (UI) generation is being moved

from the server to the client.

Our data grid component can do page by page loading, filtering,
sorting on huge files just as easily as a green screen subfile can.

That's good, but it doesn't sound like 2-way binding. Or is it?
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