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Weep Not, Loyal Users. All Things Must Perish, Even Remarkable Tools Like WDSc

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"But out of the gloom springs the holy

And beautiful Fountain of Tears."

--O'Shaughnessy

 

I have a handkerchief in my pocket just in case someone wants to cry. The fact that IBM will stop marketing Websphere Development Studio Client (WDSc) and WDSc Advanced Edition (WDSc AE) and end support for these products altogether in just two years could cause a few tears to be shed.

 

Yet there's no need to weep, gentle readers, as the products have been rolled into the new Rational Developer for System i (RDi) and Rational Developer for System i for SOA Construction (RDi SOA). Most, if not all, of the features of WDSc AE have been rolled into RDi, which will sell for one sixth the price that WDSc currently sells for, according to IBM. Do you have to formally stop marketing a product when another you offer is more complete and far less expensive? No, because anyone who can add two plus two can figure out, "Oh, this is a much better deal!"

 

RDi is an Eclipse-based IDE for traditional i5/OS development. It has edit, compile, and debug for RPG, COBOL, C, and C++ and virtually all the capabilities formally found only in WDSc AE. RDi includes Application Diagram, screen designer technology preview phase 2, single sign-on functionality for Web applications using Enterprise Identity Mapping (EIM), an IBM i5/OS program call Java Platform 2, Enterprise Edition Connector (J2C), and integration with IBM Rational ClearCase Software for System i. Woo hoo!

 

Tools for Web development, however, will be included in RDi SOA. This bundle will include the basic RDi package as well as Rational Business Developer and be a complete solution for modern Web development and use of Web services. With it, developers "can rapidly extend existing RPG and COBOL applications to a Web or SOA environment," according to IBM.

Rational Developer for System i

In RDi, which is V7.1, there are a few enhancements to Application Diagram as it exists in WDSc today. These include functional zoom, the display of program calls, and CL support. With functional zoom, source member representations can be graphically expanded to see the call graph for subroutines and subprocedures for that source member.

 

As far as program calls go, the previous release of application diagram showed only bound procedure and subroutine calls. In this version, the Application Diagram is updated to also show program calls for ILE RPG, ILE COBOL, and CL source.

 

Regarding CL support, Application Diagram now scans CL source members and adds their information to the generated diagram.

 

There are also enhancements to i5/OS program call J2C connector, single sign-on using EIM for Web applications, screen designer technology preview phase 1, and ClearCase and RDi integration for System i. These are enumerated in detail on the IBM Web site in the article "Rational Developer for System i."

Rational Developer for System i for SOA Construction

RDi SOA is scheduled for release sometime during the first quarter (or before the end of March, which happens to be when COMMON is being held in Nashville, Tennessee.) As we've said, it combines RDi with IBM Rational Business Developer. What we didn't say is that it is a work in progress. The software development bundle promises to help developers extend existing RPG and COBOL applications to a Web or SOA environment. The objective is to help reduce time to market and risk by taking advantage of existing RPG assets. The idea is to transition to a services-based approach to deliver key business functions. The developer will want to to present core RPG transactions and any mission-critical applications as "services" while providing for the development of new, ad hoc services.

 

To do this, existing applications must be diagrammed with Application Diagram. However, if the i5/OS application contains non-ILE RPG and COBOL, Application Diagram probably won't be nimble enough to handle it. In that case, a third-party tool, such as those from Databorough (an IBM Rational Business Partner), including X-Analysis and X-Migrate, might be needed. Once the service programs have been identified, RDi SOA has wizards that will create the Web services. The Web Service wizard creates a Web service to call one or more RPG or COBOL server programs or service program procedures that are running on the operating system. According to IBM, the Web Service wizard "works in the context of a Web Project and allows for creation, deployment, testing, generation of a proxy, and publication to a Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) registry of Web services."

 

RDi SOA also includes a Program Call wizard that generates a Program Call Markup Language (PCML) file and JavaBeans technology to call any i5/OS program or service program procedure, such as one written in ILE RPG. When calling an i5/OS program or service program procedure from a Java application, the wizard prompts for information about program or service program objects, along with the parameters for the objects, and then creates the JavaBeans and PCML file to handle the call.

 

RDi SOA includes a number of other tools, including ones for Web development, a Web Interaction wizard, and Page Designer. Included with RDi SOA is a complete Eclipse integrated development environment for the EGL language. IBM describes EGL as, "an easy-to-learn modern language designed to shield i5/OS application programmers from the (hassles) of Web and SOA middleware. It has been designed to help accelerate development of sophisticated Web applications and service-oriented solutions. It lets developers leverage the strengths of J2EE technologies without having to learn their intricacies. RDi SOA comes with a rich set of Eclipse-based capabilities, including EGL source-level debugging, powerful smart editing, visual construction, graphical navigation, and automated generation of Create/Read/Update/Delete (CRUD) applications from United Modeling Language (UML) models or data schemas."

 

Why RDi SOA is a work in progress is because the ink on the box of the initial release won't be dry before enhancements are well underway. According to Linda Cole, IBM manager of Rational Enterprise Modernization, in her article on RDi SOA, these enhancements will include the following:

•·        EGL support for accessing data queues and data areas

•·        Ability to create portlets in EGL

•·        Message queuing (MQ) support through EGL language abstractions

•·        Invocation of ILE procedures

•·        Ability to create Web applications for deployment to the i5/OS Integrated Application Server (included in V6R1)

•·        JSF enhancements, such as AJAX, type ahead, and security

•·        IDE productivity enhancements, such as formatting, dynamic error markers, and debugger hot swapping

•·        Improved Web services development

•·        Ability to invoke EGL programs from Java tools

 

So there is a lot to look forward to in RDi and RDi SOA...enough, hopefully, so that those loyal to WDSc in its present form won't need my handkerchief now or even two years from now when it's officially "killed."

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