Updated - 12/06/2009
I recently received a communication via the blog feedback feature. It was from one of our colleagues in France who was a little concerned about the support he receives from CA and also the usage of the tools in general.
There are quite a lot of interweaving discussions to answer his question below.
"In France,we have CA/2E 8.1SP1fr RPG.Here,we have no news from this product,it seems dead! We have to contact US support to obtain some news/upgrades,it's very difficult to have a schedule of upgrades.We use 2E since 95 and nothing has changed in the way of using it. Please reply to discuss. Thanks. "
So I guess I need to answer each of these and share some opinion along the way. After all, isn't this the point of a blog in the first instance.
Is it Dead?
Well the short answer to that is "NO". A quite emphatic one actually. CA have a roadmap for the 2e product with a host of community voted enhancements being included in 8.5 (GA July 2009, I understand). I am sure these were discussed at CA World. There was also a call from Daniel Leigh recently to the community about utilising Web Services directly in 2e as well as catering for the creation of ILE service programs from within the toolset.
There are quite a lot of interweaving discussions to answer his question below.
"In France,we have CA/2E 8.1SP1fr RPG.Here,we have no news from this product,it seems dead! We have to contact US support to obtain some news/upgrades,it's very difficult to have a schedule of upgrades.We use 2E since 95 and nothing has changed in the way of using it. Please reply to discuss. Thanks. "
So I guess I need to answer each of these and share some opinion along the way. After all, isn't this the point of a blog in the first instance.
Is it Dead?
Well the short answer to that is "NO". A quite emphatic one actually. CA have a roadmap for the 2e product with a host of community voted enhancements being included in 8.5 (GA July 2009, I understand). I am sure these were discussed at CA World. There was also a call from Daniel Leigh recently to the community about utilising Web Services directly in 2e as well as catering for the creation of ILE service programs from within the toolset.
I have been part of the Alpha and Beta testing and these is certainly some good potential in these areas.
Keeping updated about the product.
CA is a big company and I would guess that the local offices are often the last to know about product centric announcements. The guys responsible for the 2E and Plex products are particularly vocal online and via a series of user groups. The US is the biggest installed base for these products so I guess it is only right that the focus starts states side. You can sign up to the forums, my blog and other fan sites as well as the Plex2E PLC (Product Line Community). Not to mention the local user groups in some regions. US and UK.
There is also Alpha and Beta testing programmes which I encourage you to consider.
Other useful links below which I have also added as a dedicated link on the blog home page.
The CA Forums
http://caforums.ca.com/ca/?category.id=caplex
Communities Product Line Community
http://causergroups.ca.com/usergroups/UserGroupHome.aspx?ID=391
Also check out the other links I have on the blog home page. I link to the Plex and 2e Wikis which are resources we can all contribute to as well as specialist sites of key CA product partners.
Once you are a member of the PLC you will receive very regular updates from Bill Hunt and the team as well as invitations to webcasts.
And then you always have the other forums around the platforms the tools generate for. i.e. SystemiNetwork, although I guess this will be changing its name again soon once the Power System branding gains momentum.
Upgrades.
CA have explained in the past on numerous occassions and the release schedule would confirm this, they issue major upgrades for the products every two years. Service packs in between which add functionality as well as a fix roll up. See the CA website for more details about each of the product roadmaps along with release and support cycles.
On a side note SP2 has been available for quite a while (November 2007) and as I referred to earlier 8.5 is GA for July 2009.
Features introduced into 2e in recent years.
The following link (on the 2e wiki) highlights the changes that have been added to 2e in recent years. If you are considering or using Plex also then you should check out it's wiki also. See the links at the top of the blog.
http://wiki.2einfo.net/index.php?title=Versions
Depending on how you use the tool or how you have approached extending the tool would dictate which of the features you are using. Often, as the tool has been around a while we just use it as we always have. Not too different to those of us who use Word as if we were using Word for Office 4.3 instead of 2007.
Keeping updated about the product.
CA is a big company and I would guess that the local offices are often the last to know about product centric announcements. The guys responsible for the 2E and Plex products are particularly vocal online and via a series of user groups. The US is the biggest installed base for these products so I guess it is only right that the focus starts states side. You can sign up to the forums, my blog and other fan sites as well as the Plex2E PLC (Product Line Community). Not to mention the local user groups in some regions. US and UK.
There is also Alpha and Beta testing programmes which I encourage you to consider.
Other useful links below which I have also added as a dedicated link on the blog home page.
The CA Forums
http://caforums.ca.com/ca/?category.id=caplex
Communities Product Line Community
http://causergroups.ca.com/usergroups/UserGroupHome.aspx?ID=391
Also check out the other links I have on the blog home page. I link to the Plex and 2e Wikis which are resources we can all contribute to as well as specialist sites of key CA product partners.
Once you are a member of the PLC you will receive very regular updates from Bill Hunt and the team as well as invitations to webcasts.
And then you always have the other forums around the platforms the tools generate for. i.e. SystemiNetwork, although I guess this will be changing its name again soon once the Power System branding gains momentum.
Upgrades.
CA have explained in the past on numerous occassions and the release schedule would confirm this, they issue major upgrades for the products every two years. Service packs in between which add functionality as well as a fix roll up. See the CA website for more details about each of the product roadmaps along with release and support cycles.
On a side note SP2 has been available for quite a while (November 2007) and as I referred to earlier 8.5 is GA for July 2009.
Features introduced into 2e in recent years.
The following link (on the 2e wiki) highlights the changes that have been added to 2e in recent years. If you are considering or using Plex also then you should check out it's wiki also. See the links at the top of the blog.
http://wiki.2einfo.net/index.php?title=Versions
Depending on how you use the tool or how you have approached extending the tool would dictate which of the features you are using. Often, as the tool has been around a while we just use it as we always have. Not too different to those of us who use Word as if we were using Word for Office 4.3 instead of 2007.
If you are into componentisation of your 2e systems then you will be utilising many of the other features. However, there is no right or wrong way to use the product, simply what works for you. But do take a look at what is there and see if the new features can be applied to your environment.
I was quite shocked to see on a recent PLC 2E users survey that many shops are still on 7.0 and some on earlier versions.
My strong and hence bolded recommendation here is to get current.
Certainly 15 years ago the focus was that 2e generated every aspect of your system. Nowadays if forms part of a hetrogenous platform of servers and tools.
The base tool has remained largely the same with the focus on value add but 8.5 has quite a few base tool enhancements. I like the filtering now. Very neat. And recent releases have had quite a lot of neat shortcut function keys and subfile options that can increase developer productivity.
Lastly, I guess there is also the advent of the internet. With so much information available, if we are not sourcing our information via the net then we could be missing out on lots of it. And if we looked closely or joined the PLC you would know about the 4th Annual conference taking place in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, USA in September 2009.
Certainly 15 years ago the focus was that 2e generated every aspect of your system. Nowadays if forms part of a hetrogenous platform of servers and tools.
The base tool has remained largely the same with the focus on value add but 8.5 has quite a few base tool enhancements. I like the filtering now. Very neat. And recent releases have had quite a lot of neat shortcut function keys and subfile options that can increase developer productivity.
Lastly, I guess there is also the advent of the internet. With so much information available, if we are not sourcing our information via the net then we could be missing out on lots of it. And if we looked closely or joined the PLC you would know about the 4th Annual conference taking place in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, USA in September 2009.
Thanks for reading.
Lee.
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