Re: [Tn5250py-general] tn5250py for screen scraping/automation

[Tim M. <x...@Ve...>]

On November 3, 2003 01:50 am, Patrick Bielen wrote:
> Sure, but we all moved back to the tn5250j-project
> which is more populair than this one.

I did notice that it seemed most of the developers on this project were in the 
"j" one as well... I guess now I know why.

> Depends on what you need, it's very simple to use java
> and the IBM-toolkit to do much automated things to drive

I have been looking over the IBM-toolkit but am not finding the documentation 
for the API's organised in a way I can very easily understand (or even find) 
--- I have access to VisualAge for Java with all of this stuff loaded (even 
WebSphere's WebFacing tool! But don't have DDS files for the main app in 
quesiton...)

Anyhow, I really appreciate your response. I'm afraid it will take a lot more 
to convince me of Java's ways in general... but that's another argument. 
There's a lot of factors. What it mostly comes down to though, I admit, is 
that I'm a lot more comfortable and experienced in Python (btw, i'd never use 
Tk! WxPython all the way for GUIs! But i rarely do GUIs... mostly I work on 
web-interfaced applications) than in Java. 

But I do agree, one should use the best tool for the job and certainly IBM's 
java toolkit for the AS/400 is a compelling toolset. And I've been 
considering it, and hacking around with it a bit; but haven't made much 
headway. Also I may end up having to use the JDBC drivers for DB2... so 
that's another possible reason to try to stick to Java...

There's no doubt that tn5250j is a nice program; i've played around with it a 
bit. But I've not looked at the source code, or tried to build it myself yet. 
This is getting off topic for this list, but I assume the protocol/terminal 
emulator classes are isolated from the GUI? My concern is that I have to use 
the GUI code... 

My main issue (as is often the case) is time. I need to get things working as 
fast as possible. I think I can do it with the tn5250py code; I'm not sure 
how much extra time it will take me to get into the Java code. I'm thinking 
the tn5250py code may be "enough" to suit my limited needs; but I am also 
aware that it may cause me to run against limitations I'm not aware of yet. 

Tricky.

Anyhow, i certainly do appreciate your enthusiasm and long reply. I will 
reconsider the Java vs Python for this project... 

It's too bad about the python project though. It looked really promising.

-- 
Tim Middleton | Cain Gang Ltd | There is a wisdom that is woe; but there 
x...@ve...     | www.Vex.Net   | is a woe that is madness. --Melville (MD)