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Good afternoon, everyone. My company is upgrading all laptops to Windows 7 starting in January and I've heard that it is not compatible with WDSCI. Is this true? Right now, we're running on v5r4 and upgrading to v6r1 in February. Not sure if this makes any difference.
If WDSCI is not compatible, what are my alternatives?
Thanks for any input!
What is WDSCi? I use RDp isn't that what you should be using by now?
Indeed, RDp would be the way to go.
Unfortunately, it is not completely free of charge as is (was) WDSC. And where RDp is a step up from WDSC but WDSC is quite some steps up compared to the old green-screen-thingy, now what was it called again? :o)
Anyway, I use both on different sites depending on the customer's budget.
Happy RPG-ing,
Paulster
BTW:
Just got an 'upgraded' PC but still with XP (major bummer...) and with WDSC so I wouldn't know about running WDSC under W7.
Ok, apparently I'm behind the times.... Where is RDp and how do we go about getting it?
Rational Developer for Power (dot dot dot). There are several flavors, depending on what you want to do. Came out with i 6.1, I think. It's the next generation of WDSCi, but no longer free; pricing is by developer seat.
See http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/i/rational/index.html
The licenses were on a separate CD. We installed them on each developer's workstation, to make remote development easier. There's also a way to manage them on a shared directory somewhere, which would need to be available when you start RDP. I'll theorize that drive mapped via VPN should work.
I was supporting a green screen app (JWalk was involved, but still green screen development), so we used the RPG and COBOL version, which I think is now Rational Developer for Power Systems Software.
Old WDSCi workspace was upgraded automatically and cleanly. I recommend making a backup first (just copy or ZIP the entire directory structure).
CODE is gone, but the only thing I used it for was the screen designer. RDP has a beta for a new screen designer (SDA replacement), which I wasn't entirely thrilled with, but that's just my opinion. Wasn't too bad for maintenance, but if I had to create a new screen, I usually did it in SDA. Possibly this may just be a matter of familiarization and comfort level.
Back to the original question, WDSCi end of support date was April 30, 2010. You're living on borrowed time. From what I see, WDSCi was supported for for XP, but not Windows 7.
For RDP, Windows 7 is supported on Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions, 32-bit or 64-bit.
The new RDP has the screen designer and I don't think it's a "technology preview" anymore, as well as a report designer. RDP is also faster and slimmer than WDSC.
I used WDSC when I was on v5r4 and Windows XP and loved it. But I don't think it goes beyond v5r4. That is, I think it will run, but it won't recognize all the nifty new stuff in i6.1 so it will think you have syntax errors, etc.
Now I'm on i6.1 and Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, and use RDP and love it. It's true that it costs money (it cost me about $800 per developer), but it's worth it. Besides, you won't really have a choice soon since not even SEU will recognize new syntax starting with 7.1 I believe.
RDP is the way to develop in RPG, IMO. Contact your IBM business partner and tell them you want it. Mine is on my IBM Passport Advantage.
Thanks for the input, everyone. I will definitely contact our IBM business partner and get it ASAP. Of course, after management approves the purchase.
As Viking said, its about $800 plus annual maintenance fees. So far they've only added some bug fixes and nothing new for the 2 years of maintenance fees I've paid them.
The screen designer is complicated to use, but nicer than SDA by a longshot.
Mostly its lacks of someone who actually writes for AS/400 (I mean IBM i on POWER) for a living contributing design feedback, but in v8.0.3 it actually started working, which is great considering how crappy it was until release 8.
Hi Chris,
Meanwhile, you can use the "unsupported" workaround for WDSC & windows 7. Here's the link to it: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas1d8897a08c73f4f1986257700004a492d
I've used it for a while but had issued retrieving SQLRPGLE modules compilation errors. This had been resolved with RDp.
Cheers.