IBM Releases Rational HATS 8
Dojo, REST, iPads, oh my!
So, the release many of us at Strongback (as well as a few customers) have been waiting for was released. HATS version 8 brings a whole bunch of new features. Some of which we’ve had direct input on (thank us for getting proper screen shots of VT100 screens). We were even quoted in the announcement material that went out from IBM regarding JAX-RS or RESTful web services.
The most obvious update is the Dojo features. Up until this release we had been hacking at it (and pretty well I might add). This release makes it just so simple to add Dojo widgets to your transformations. The JAX-RS web services is another interface we had been calling for and they are downright cool. You can wrap up a HATS macro, writing it more like you would if you were doing CRUD operations. Then you can deliver the results in JSON format. This makes it much easier to manipulate the data in your Javascript calls, rather than serializing and deserializing the XML data.
The support for iPad, is a great marketing enhancement, but truthfully, was a minor upgrade as the tool already supported iPhone very well, and the Apple Safari browser was already well supported (but not officially).
There are lots of new features, and rather than bore you with a text based rant, we offer you our presentation on Slideshare, with lots of pretty images.
Also mentioned is a update to Host Integration Solution, which is a package that includes HATS, Host-On-Demand, IBM Personal Communcations, and IBM Communications Server. PCOMM is now included in the package. If you have a need for concurrent user pricing, HIS offers this and could be a more cost effective method of licensing over authorized user and server based pricing.
Of the most exciting features, is that this version of HATS requires an eclipse 3.5 compatible Rational IDE. The previous version would not install under RAD 8, which prevented you from using Team Concert 3.0x. HATS was one of the last shoes to drop to support this new standard, and those customers can now proceed with their RTC 3.0x upgrade plans.
Overall, this upgrade should be very smooth. I took an existing customer application which used heavily customized web services, and easily upgraded it with minimal changes to the source code. I was also able to quickly turn the same macro behind the JAX-WS web service and create a JAX-RS web service, and both worked fantastically. The underlying RAD8 environment performs much better. We’ll post more blog entries in the coming months on HATS 8 and its various features. Stay tuned.
Finally, we’ll leave you with a link to the technical specifications, for those of you who want to look at total compatibility.
https://www-304.ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/servlet/mem/ContentHandler/Y162373T55729Z40
