Hi. We have been developing in RPGLE and Profound UI for 3+ years now. As a part of the next step in modernization, I am in the process of justifying the investment in node.js and profound.js. Here a questions posed by the upper echulon.
Can we have mobile apps using Profound.JS?
Is profound ready for small/touch screens?
How hard/easy it’s to convert Profound RPG to Profound.JS ?
Can we use Profound.js as an stand alone development platform?
The short answer to the first two (2) are "Yes". I know there is a conversion tool provided by Profound so the cost would depend on how much conversion would be needed.
The last question though is what I need some understanding. I know node.js is multi-platform and I would expect the profound.js extension as well. What about screen development with Profound UI designer?
Thoughts or suggestions on addressing the above? Any additional points that lend toward justification?
Conversion is definitely the most challenging part, especially if you're moving off-platform. There are usually a number of other things besides just RPG things going on... calling IBM APIs, CL programs, Cobol programs, a whole slew of different things like that. We can convert RPG code to Node.js, but the other things almost certainly need to be rewritten. (For example, if you're moving to Linux, you'll want to replace a CL program using IBM i commands with a shell script running Unix commands. You really can't "convert" that.)
But, yes, Profound.js is cross-platform.
As for justification, our sales team would be better able to address that. They've been asked to contact you.
I understand this is difficult to answer in this medium. Part of this justification is where we are about to begin developing a new application from scratch but will need to interface into back office applications in native RPG and using native and SQL database. There is thought about moving into node.js for a more pure web client server interfacing but using our experience we have with Profound UI to help bridge the knowledge gap.