Delphi/400 is a suite of application modernization tools designed to enable System i application developers to build completely new Web applications or build new Web interfaces to existing applications. For the System/i developer, there is lots of good news. The approach is based on the same notion of holistic application design and user interface / logic separation that System i developers have been using since the box you and I love was once called the System/38 Delphi/400 is the toolset that best addresses the notion of the application factory of rapid application development. It is the natural next step in a progression of tools from those with sophisticated names such as “Intelligent Development Environment,” “Componentization,” and “Visualization.” Yes, It is all of those and more. It does its thing by asking the developer to think about the whole application, not just one Web page at a time. Isn’t that how System i developers already think?

Time to Look to a Leader
After many years of hope, with V6R1 of i5/OS and its supporting cast of programs, IBM has yet to provide the long-hinted, if not often promised natural Web interface. After 18 years, for System i developers, name changes come more quickly. Isn’t it time to stop waiting? Of course this means that neither RPG developers nor COBOL developers will be replacing their green screen oriented display files with an IBM packaged natural object with HTML or XML GUI. This will not be happening because IBM does not want it to happen. If it is ever to come and there is no reason to believe it will, it won’t be for at least two or more years. For Baby Boomers at this point of their careers, that’s more like a lifetime.

IBM in recent times programs its major software releases for System i to be released every two years. Some say this is whether the community needs it or not. Clearly with so many System i users on back-levels of the operating system, many have not seen enough value in IBM’s recent efforts to make the move to upgrade. The natural IBM RPG interface, the proverbial Web Device Object File, is already “too late” to stop the SMB erosion. Two years from now will just be “too later.”

Many of the graying baby boomers that I grew up with in this industry have already begun to move their permanent offices to cruise ships and/or exotic islands. To these platform stalwarts, who saw the AS/400 heritage machines as the ultimate technical professional experience, the new office locations will certainly be the ultimate visual experience. Most mature System i developers prefer to switch or quit rather than fight IBM at this point. What’s coming to the System i community has already arrived with V6R1 and for developers it happens to be the same as 1978. Nothing is about to change. So, get over it!

Though to many who perform their daily System i tasks without complaint, this is seen as still adequate and superior to other available options, my suggestion is to reevaluate that posture. It is not sufficient for running your business on the Web. It is not good enough professionally for developers to live with half-working tools and half-baked products from the 1980’s. More importantly, it is not the deck of cards that the modern System i developer must accept. That is why I am taking the time today to introduce you to a better way. It is long overdue, but it is complete, productive, modern, and best of all, thanks to the CodeGear and System Objects partnership, it is the best development environment in the world. Now, it can be used with the most productive back-room system in the world, the System i.

Download pdf Delphi/400 for PHP RAD for the Web Reaches System