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I digged into the world of webfacing recently. What is webfacing you might ask. Webfacing is one of many products in the IBM websphere product platform (contained in WDSc - Websphere Developer Studio Client), specially targeted at IBM iSeries Servers. IBM is trying to push iSeries programmers, mainly coding RPG applications, to use java for browser based access to applications. Webfacing converts RPG Display files to JSPs and JavaBeans, which indeed access the business logic still residing as compiled RPG on the iSeries. This conversion enables host application to act as webapplications.

The concept is quite clever, but most of the customers use it as black box. Ok, they deploy java applications, but they dont touch them, nor do they know whats going on at all. They got a WAR or EAR file with the view and controller part of a webapplication, the model still resides as compiled host application. Its of course better than weird RPGs acting as CGI-BINs in the iSeries Webserver, but customers need to know that its not enough to use this black box. If they want to build real web applications, which feel and look like web applications, they have to go the hard way. In the long run, they have to learn Java and they have to rewrite a lot of stuff and call Host applications where necessary.

But after all, its a quite exciting area. You have to handle the Websphere Application Server and there are a lot of versions out there at the moment and you have the chance to evangalize java to potentially new java developers.