[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: A question
Chris Double <chris@double.co.nz> wrote in message
wkk8lfobxz.fsf@double.co.nz">news:wkk8lfobxz.fsf@double.co.nz...
> "Stephen J. Guthrie" <steve.guthrie@mantissa.com> writes:
> >
> > I started out by buying Dylan (this, I assume, is a good thing) and
> > I am now curious as to whether I should throw good money after bad.
>
> What sort of things are you planning to write? What type of things do
> you work on?
Good question. I have mainframe programs I write in Assembler H, mainly a
container for report and document management, distribution and printing. I
don't use a database backend, so I don't need SQL at all. The mainframe
system can be run from a batch environment or through CICS or TSO. CICS/TSO
allow user access to the mainframe container to view and manage documents
through 3270 VTAM devices. I wrote a Java-based applet to convert the 3270
VTAM to a GUI for general Internet access.
I also have a client program that receives documents via SNA or FTP and
allows data mining, document viewing and document transformation (ASCII text
only, for now). This application is written in Visual C++, using some
component grid controls and OBDC to either Microsoft Access or SQL Server
6.5. I don't store documents in SQL server, I store edge pointers to a
hierarchichal container I wrote in VC++. No Visual Basic or other languages
are used in this project.
Finally, I have an almost finished project I wrote in Galaxy and a custom
written Object Rexx variant we designed in house. The project was designed
to allow enterprise management and control of mainframe functions from
practically any client. I don't need to tell you about Galaxy, suffice to
say I lost 4 man years of work when they departed the scene. This leads me
to Dylan and java and Smalltalk - what do I replace Galaxy with? If the
replacement product was right for this purpose, couldn't I also replace my
VC++ and Java efforts? The new replacement would have to run on:
MVS/OS390
Microsft Windows 3.11, WFW, 95, 98, NT 3.5, NT 4.0 and Windows 2000
Linux
AIX
Sun (ALL)
Open Edition Unix
This is where I am and why I am evaluating (and using):
Visual Age for Java 3.0 Enterprise
IBM WebSphere (OS/390, Linux, Windows, Open Edition Unix)
CICS V1.3
Object-based Rexx (home-grown)
VC++
Now I need a glue environment to bind them all together and that's what I am
doing.
Thanks for your help.
Steve
>
> The things I like most about Dylan would probably be:
>
> - its lisp like nature.
> - everything is an object.
> - multiple dispatch
> - singleton, subclass, one-of dispatch.
> - macro facility.
> - ability to use OO, functional or procedural programming.
> - DUIM, so easy to create GUI's in code rather than requiring a GUI
> builder.
> - The HD development environments ship with lots of example code.
>
> I do miss the listener style approach you get in Lisp, where you see
> the results of what you do straight away - similar type of
> functionality in Smalltalk too. HD 1.2 provides this from the IDE
> though and HD 2.0 beta makes it even easier so it's not such a loss.
>
> I like the way in the HD versions of Dylan that all libraries are
> packaged as DLL's. For me it has encouraged reuse of common
> libraries.
>
> The HD c-ffi is good - it is easy to access Windows API and other
> external API's. I would like to be able to use this in the listener
> though but that is currently not possible unfortunately. I've never
> had an external API I couldn't call via Dylan yet.
>
> Overall it is a language that seems to suit the style of programming
> that I do. The use of multiple dispatch simplifies many designs I've
> had to do and the macro faciltiy helps to simplify things even
> further. The ability to pass methods, functions, and classes around as
> first class objects also has made things easier for the types of
> things I do.
>
> Many of the above things can be done in other languages in a variety
> of different ways. But for me Dylan has provided a good trade off
> between ease of use, powerfull language features, and easy application
> delivery.
>
> I've used HD 1.2 professional for most of my recent personal
> programming projects, one commercial program and a couple of small
> freeware programs available for download from the internet.
>
> I was a bit dubious that people would download the HD runtime, given
> its size, just to run a small freeware thing but I was surprised that
> this proved not to be an obstacle. And once I wrote a few more add on
> programs there was no need for users to download the large file
> again. I guess the HD runtime isn't that much bigger than all the MFC
> DLL's or the VB runtime stuff. Over the last two months there were
> about 2,000 downloads of the HD runtime and associated utilities from
> my web site so it seems that end users didn't mind running Dylan
> stuff.
>
> That's my reasons for using Dylan. I'm sure an enthusiast of any
> language could come up with similar reasons though. Pick a language
> and I hope you have fun using it.
>
> Chris.
> --
> http://www.double.co.nz/dylan
>
References: