Re: Exciting Things Coming

RWMunday wrote:

Joe,

Should I be learning EGL now? Will it enhance my ability to find work?
It's tough enough to find RPG contract projects even with my twenty-five
years of RPG.

EGL is a great language to use in tandem with RPG. Whether it will get you new work depends a lot on your client base; they'll need RDi-SOA to use EGL, and that's an extra-priced item.

How much better is it than RPG? Why does IBM hate RPG enough to have made
several attempts to kill it off? Remember SAA? Is this IBM's attempt to
kill RPG?

While there are some within IBM who insist that EGL will replace RPG, we've been hearing the stories of RPG's demise for years now. Personally, until I see someone write an MRP generation in EGL that runs within 100% of the time of an RPG solution, I'm not worried about RPG's future.

I still can put together business logic quicker in RPG than with any other language, so if EGL provides a web interface, through browser, web service or rich client, then if anything it's giving RPG a longer life. EGL is definitely providing a powerful, easy-to-use alternative to things RPG-CGI and PHP.

And that can't be all bad.

Joe