Of chalk and cheese...

Just a small voice in the wind, but I second all of Jon's arguements.

The leap from RPG/400 (or RPG III as old-timers insist on calling it!) to
RPG IV is a _minimal_ programming shock and provides big payoffs (just for
string handling alone, the conversion is worth the effort). You _do not_
have to move heavily into the ILE model (which requires substantially more
study that the RPG/400->RPGIV curve) to get payoffs from RPG IV. And you do
not have to look to arcane features such as pointers for payoffs.

Java is important, certainly, and we _all_ need to have it on our radar.
But, as JP so elegantly puts it, comparing RPG 400 to RPG IV migration to
RPG 400 to Java migration is chalk and cheese of the highest order. For
solving problems today, RPG and Cobol have _lots_ of life left in them. And
the ILE versions offer lots more functionality, with a minimal learning
curve.

For naysayers, quit yer bellyachin and experiment with RPG IV. In a week,
you'll look back and wonder what you were thinking!

rp



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