RE: New RPG programmers

rpg400-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>   6. Re: New RPG programmers (Duane Kehoe)
>
>   I never said all I said most, think about it this way - Are most RPG
>   programmers on this list?  NO.  Do most even know it exists, or care?  I
>   bet NO.  Are they the ones I direct my comments at?  YES, not the members
>   of this list who clearly are advancing their skills and learning new
>   things.  I will give you the youngerster comment as I have seen the same
>   thing(and that really bothers me as I too have learned many languages and
>   always am looking to enhance my skills especially as I look to build my
>   career). In my opinion those youngersters are tomorrow's older programmers
>   that I am referring to, they are just getting an early start :-(


In support of part of that paragraph, please see:

  http://www.midrange.com/liststats.htm  (Thank, you, David.)

Before looking, anybody care to guess the penetration of lists such as these in 
terms of percentage of AS/400 installs? ...of OS/400 or RPG developers?

But then, lists such as these are always the forums where change and new 
techniques are debated and pursued. Those who are happily working away in 
isolation generally could hardly care less if something new arose. If it shows 
up, fine; if not, fine. The job pays the same.

We just can't let ourselves assume that "we" (the listers) are representative 
of the mainstream. Perhaps "we" are, but the assumption has risk.

We might even be in trouble if "we" are actually representative. Most posters 
have a hard enough time grasping concepts such as 'trimming the posts'. Posts 
with half a dozen or more footers and a ten-word response arrive every day. If 
THAT's too advanced, what's the hope of mastering differences among various 
execution boundaries or mastering restricted state operations and how 
restricted state affects communications devices or, heaven forbid, "Why does 
the CALL work in my CL program but the parms are garbage when I use SBMJOB?"

Sigh. I have no worries that qualified replacements will appear as needed. As 
long as the jobs are there, there will be applicants. If "we" do "our" jobs 
correctly, the replacements may need to do little more than call our procedures 
in the right order.

Tom Liotta

-- 
Tom Liotta
The PowerTech Group, Inc.
19426 68th Avenue South
Kent, WA 98032
Phone  253-872-7788 x313
Fax    253-872-7904
http://www.powertech.com



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