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| JUNE
2004 |
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Optimize
your software supply chain... |
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In
this Issue |
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"JUNE
HIGHLIGHTS"
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As
emerging technologies are slowly but surely being integrated
into software development projects, a large number of companies
are experiencing real difficulties with the resulting homogeneity
of their teams.
How can we avoid the instinctive barrier
that forms between teams that need to inter-communicate
on a daily basis ? How can we ensure that developers from
different
technology cultures and generations understand and respect
each other ? The answer to these
problems, which are felt at both nationwide and team levels,
can be summed
up in one word: sharing.
Obviously, a first knee-jerk reaction would be to consider sharing
a single common language, but without a complete
application rewrite, the idea is is non-starter. So, what else is shareable,
then? Tools, of course.
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With WDSc, IBM
has now practically succeeded in this challenge.
Coming from the Open Source Eclipse project, this Integrated
Development Environment or IDE allows
both "traditional" and high-tech teams to share
the same working environment, and, thanks to the "plug-in"
system, to stay open to periphery tools on the market,
notably Software Configuration Management tools. This way,
even
developers working with different "raw materials" share
a common
toolset, making dialog that much easier.
For sure,
it
cannot
resolve all the cultural differences that exist, but is
undoubtedly an
essential factor in convergence.
In this issue, we will focus on WDSc and the ARCAD
plug-in for WDSc. This plug-in fully integrates our solutions
into the new environment. We really hope that this newsletter will give
you some food for thought when addressing your own organisation and
future choices.
Best
regards,
Philip
MAGNE
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Coming
next in this series
on Multi-platform development...
-
JULY ISSUE: DB2
- AUGUST ISSUE: MULTI-PLATFORM DEVELOPMENT
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Find
out more...
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Don't
miss the next edition of ARCAD’VANTAGE
in July 2004 !
The
3rd instalment in the Multi-Platform Development series will
be devoted to: DB2 |
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An
IDE is to a developer what is a pen is to a writer: an indispensable
basic tool, one we use every day, to which we grow more and more
accustomed, and always need to have to hand.
A good IDE must be able to adapt to the small idiosyncrasies
of each developer, in other words, be highly customizable. It must
be powerful, easy-to-use and reliable. It must
ease development tasks, and offload the maximum number of constraints
on the developer so that he can focus exclusively on producing code.
And finally it must be intelligent, as after all, it is itself
a program, and as such will be critically judged by developers.
With such a daunting list of prerequisites, putting a new IDE on
the market, even if you are IBM, is still a gamble.
Like bringing out a new model of car, it is difficult to foresee
whether it will succeed or flop.
At this moment in time, we can safely conclude that IBM's new IDE
is a true success.
It has been adopted by a very wide-ranging community, and
across several platforms. In the software business (unlike show
business), achieving such rapid success is not a risk factor,
but instead an indicator of continuity. The real strength of IBM
has been to rapidly position itself as a default standard, to the
detriment of Sun, and the Netbean environment. Another guage of
its durability: this IDE has come to the fore not due to any huge
marketing effort, but simply because it has been chosen by a large
number of developers worldwide.
This tool is here and now in the iSeries world - there's no looking
back!
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Your
comments/suggestions
are always welcome!
Send them to Stephanie ZELKO szelko@arcadsoftware.com
All the best,
the
ARCAD Software team
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our Website : www.arcadsoftware.com |
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The
opinion of a convinced
developer.
Everywhere
you look IBM is encouraging users to abandon the venerable PDM/SEU
pair in favour of its latest innovation, "Websphere Development
Studio Client". This is an ambitious project, in light of
the lukewarm response given by users to its predecessor, CODE,
that
came nowhere
near ousting PDM/SEU.
The reason is that, in spite of its bygone worn appearance,
the PDM/SEU pair is still a model for productivity . If SEU fails
to
impress with the attractiveness of its interface and on its intuitive
dimension
(you try deducing that you need to enter `RP' in the line number
column to copy a line!), it is nonetheless easy to learn and a newcomer
is quickly productive. The help (F1) and the prompters (F4) are
always available. PDM provides an exemplary navigation utility for
finding a source or object.
So
why bother to go through a new learning phase on a development
environment?
WDSc
provides a similar level of functionality to PDM/SEU,
but without the heavy and rather awkward
feel of CODE.
The navigation between objects and sources has been very carefully
designed, and is an unequivocal success. The contents of the explorer
are filter-based. In addition to the
predefined
filters
supplied - to explore libraries from the *LIBL for example - a
developer can also define his own personal filters.
The source editor can work in the same way as SEU (which CODE failed
to support on CL sources), including a very powerful prompter (F4)
.
But
WDSc goes a lot further than just imitating or finding
solutions that are functionally equivalent to PDM/SEU: it brings
real added
value to the developer.
For example, one special feature of the explorer: it navigates "inside" certain
types of objects, such as DSPF files, from where you can consult
records,
and their fields and definitions; you can navigate
through members of a PF or display field descriptions
with a simple mouse-click !
WDSc offers an additional "outline" view from the editor.
This feature reveals the declarations
of the variables, procedures,
and subroutines currently being edited so that you can
move to them directly.
As far as the continuity of WDSc is concerned, remember that this
tool is not an isolated,
specific development. It is built on the
most complete, open and dynamic development environment in
the open-source world: Eclipse.
Eclipse is the best thing that IBM has in the development environment
arena. As it exists today, even with some aspects that need perfecting,
WDSc is already superior to PDM/SEU.
And as its architecture is designed to be extensible, it will inevitably
be enriched with new features, by IBM itself and by third-parties.
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| Copyright © 2004
ARCAD Software, Inc. All rights reserved. |
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The strength of ARCAD-Changer has always been
to give developers access to version management functions
from within their IDE. So, with that aim, how could we possibly ignore
the unstoppable rise of WDSc, presented by IBM as the imminent successor
to PDM/SEU ?
It is no longer a matter of whether or not to opt for this platform,
but just how to integrate our tools.
We could have chosen, as others have, to build a plug-in (the fundamental
extension element of the Eclipse platform) starting
from scratch. But could we still call that integration?
To stay loyal to our philosophy, we needed to work closely with the WDSc tools
and we therefore chose
to go for an extension plug-in (the Eclipse mechanism for adding functionality
to an existing plug-in).
Amongst these tools, the "RSE" or
Remote System Explorer -
the supposed replacement for PDM - supports the exploration and technical
management of resources from different systems. We therefore decided
to enhance this tool with a more functional view of the information
system while integrating
the concept of
application, the cornerstone of the ARCAD system. This
means that, from the
same tool,
you can navigate through your libraries, files and members
and also
through
your applications, environments, versions and components.
With a simple click, you have access to the properties of each of
these elements through specific views. You trigger the various ARCAD
version management commands in many different ways, intuitively,
from a high-level graphical interface (contextual menus, drag-drop,
etc.).
You have access to a dynamically-built command prompt window with
exactly the same functionality as in the native interface. In
practice, this is not just a "gadget" - as it guarantees
that you can always use any any of your native commands, present
or future.
When it comes to modifying your component source code, the ARCAD
checks come into effect just before calling the editors
(RPG IV, COBOL, CL, etc.) supplied by WDSc. And so that these modifications are
made in view of the wider context, you can consult the different
views derived from the ARCAD repository data (e.g. calling chains,
cross-references)
and
on the modification traceability system (maintenance documents).
We understand that the choice of a particular IDE is a delicate balance of cultural
and technical constraints and has to be treated case-by-case, but you now know
that with the ARCAD WDSc plug-in, the
underlying
methodological
framework has not changed, and that the ARCAD system is
seamlessly
integrated
into
WDSc. By
our approach, we affirm
our
goal
to offer on this platform, the same level of integration that has
made
our
tools
a
success so far,
and that will govern their success in the future.
Find
out more...
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