RE: Time to get serious

>When you hire an RPG programmer, you
>typically get someone who is not only conversant in a very productive
>language, but they also tend to understand business. 

There are lots of good RPG programmers out there, but unfortunately
there are lots of RPG programmers that aren't willing to discover
anything new too, and they tend to not understand business either. As
much as everyone on this list may disagree with each other from time to
time (and you and I more than others Joe <G>) we all share one very
important attribute, we're willing to invest in ourselves and our
education -- our mere presence on this list (even you lurkers!) is proof
we recognize the need to look outside the world of left-hand-side
indicators and O specs. 

I'm involved in a local user's group here on Long Island and I'm amazed
at the number of people that aren't subscribed to midrange-l. Almost
every month there's a question that comes up at the meeting that I say
to myself "hey, we just spoke about that on the list" -- and in many
cases I'll point out that _everyone_ should be on midrange-l. Do they
listen, nooooo. Why? I have no idea, but they're happy to live in the
world of BITON, BITOFF and MVHLZO (not sure I've ever used that).

>but they couldn't tell you why (NOT (A AND B)) is the same as (NOT A OR
>NOT B).  

Demorgan's law! The scary thing is that I actually needed that not too
long ago.

-Walden


------------
Walden H Leverich III
President & CEO
Tech Software
(516) 627-3800 x11
WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.TechSoftInc.com

Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)
  


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Tuesday, 01 March, 2005 02:05
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Time to get serious

I agree this is a tough situation.  But at the same time, there are tons
of good RPG programmers out there, they just tend to not work for entry
position money, and I think that's your problem.  You want RPG
programmers at entry-level prices, and those are few and far between.

But there's a reason for that.  When you hire an RPG programmer, you
typically get someone who is not only conversant in a very productive
language, but they also tend to understand business.  Sure, you can hire
someone from college for a relatively low salary, but you get what you
pay for.

Which leads to a related point: there's a whole generation of
"programmers" being turned out of school these days that really doesn't
know anything about programming.  They can push buttons and run wizards,
but they couldn't tell you why (NOT (A AND B)) is the same as (NOT A OR
NOT B).  

So what to do?  Well, one thing you can do is to leverage your assets.
Start working towards a deployment model that can make use of both
old-style RPG programmers and entry-level programmers using things like
Java.  What you want is a tiered architecture in which the Java guys
build the UI and the RPG guys build servers to encapsulate the business
logic.  Designed correctly, such an architecture lets you take advantage
of both sides to do lots of work.

Joe


> From: Mike Eovino
> 
> I'm a manager (don't hold it against me) in a shop that's growing
> fairly quickly.  It is extremely difficult to get the RPG talent we
> need.  Schools are not teaching the language, so it's tough to find
> the young talent we'd like to build our base on.  It's tough to find
> experienced programmers because the ones you want are already in good
> jobs they don't want to leave.
> 
> We're teaching it to everyone we can, but I'm worried that we won't be
> able to attract enough talent to keep growing at the rate we'd like.
> What can we do?

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