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EarthWeb: Unconventional Java Programmer Finds Open-Source Roots Deep Within IBM

“You know what Java’s good for, right? Web client applets,
server-side business components, large-team object-oriented fresh
developments, that sort of thing?”

“And system management on business minicomputers, deep in the
heart of the enterprise.”

“At least, that’s a use to which Jack Woehr puts the language.
His MEU (MyEditUtil) is a source physical file member editor coded
in Java for OS/400. OS/400 is the twelve-year-old proprietary
operating system (OS) for the line of high-availability machines
IBM now brands as its iSeries eServers. The object file system
(OFS) for that OS is “record-oriented” – data live in records with
length fixed for each file. The source code for OS/400 applications
is in special files somewhat more involved to modify consistently
than the “flat” ASCII texts familiar to Windows or Unix
programmers.”

“Java’s up to the chore, though. As Woehr wrote in one of his
published articles, “Java native on OS/400 is profound, complex,
and beautiful. … It’s getting hard to argue in favor of any
significant new AS/400 client application that does not use the
Java toolkit.”


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