Re[2]: "Webulating" RPG

     Jon, my personal experience with AD tools has more or less been: "Wow! 
     That CODE/400 tool looks great! Can we get it, boss?"     "No, you 
     already have an editor to maintain your code. SEU was good enough for 
     me when I was programming in '82, so it'll be good enough for you." :(
     Or the ever popular: "Sure we can get it, you just won't be getting 
     paid for a year or so."   
     
     I think that in many cases, it's hard to promote the virtues of new 
     (or not so new) AD technology because people do not understand how one 
     editor is really better than the other. They both ultimately do the 
     same thing and produce the same thing: source code. What is the 
     economic advantage to the department. 
     
     Believe me, I'm definitely in favor of better tools and development 
     environments. But I am seldom (ie. never <vbg>) in a position to make 
     the final decision on the purchasing of such. What's a lowly 
     programmer to do? 
     
     Oh, BTW, I have never mentioned a desire to purchase CODE/400 to my 
     present employers. :) The 'boss' listed above is from a deep, dark 
     past that I 


_________________________ Reply Separator ____________________________
Subject: Re: "Webulating" RPG 
Author:  <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com > at INTERNET
Date:    2/23/98 5:48 AM


>>"I concede to your greater wisdom."<<
     
It would be nice to think that "wisdom" is what I have - sadly "battle scars" is
closer to the truth.  I've spent the better part of my life for the last ten 
years trying to persuade people to update the way they do things.  Not on a 
"grand" scale like switching to OO - that is after all a very big leap.  Rather 
on a smaller incremental scale, like simply upgrading the AD environment, using 
RPG IV, that kind of thing.
     
Just to give you an example.  Last fall I did a roadshow on the west coast. 
The theme was "Things you must do, things you should do, and things you might
do" (which equated to Y2K, updating your AD environment, and Java).  During the 
"updating your AD" part, I did a brief demonstration of VARPG - which included 
showing the CODE/400 editor.  Just about every time someone in the audience 
would ask if they could get such an editor to work with their existing RPG 
programs.  When I pointed out that CODE/400 had been available for years (I 
know .. I know .. it was OS/2 only until a year ago) the usual reaction was 
amazement.  I then took to asking the audience how many of them had heard of 
CODE/400.  During all the sessions we did (and on many other occasions) the 
number has never been greater than about 25% - and this is among those who are 
sufficiently interested in AD to even bother going to sessions like this!!
     
Our marketing is obviously not as good as it should be, but discussions with 
others such as Aldon (who market Flex/Edit) lead me to believe that the AS/400 
crowd as a whole are difficult to reach, and even harder to sell to.  It would 
be interesting to survey those on this list (obviously among the leaders in 
AS/400 technology!) to see just how many are still using SEU as their primary 
editor (which as I've said in the past I regard as being the equivalent of 
using a sharpened screwdriver to do fine woodcarving!!)
     
     
Jon Paris - AS/400 AD Market Support - paris@ca.ibm.com 
Phone: (416) 448-4019   -   Fax: (416) 448-4414
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