How did you get started with RPG?

Vern had this great question:
"This does raise the question - just how DOES a person get into RPG on
their own? With all the supporting objects needed - the examples in the
Programmer's Guide seem to assume that you know how to create PFs and
DSPFs."

I'll start as a relative newcomer to the platform. I did not start learning
RPG on my own, but I did read a lot.

My first experience with AS/400s was in the mid 1990s, when I was hired on
as an overnight operator (swap backup tapes, run backups, etc). I remember
fondly Neil Palmer shared his CLP for daily backups. This was at a casino
running canned software (LSI) so we didn't do anything with it (no source
anyway, I'm sure modifications had to be vetted with the state's Gaming
Commission).

Near the end of my first year, the manager left, after showing me the basic
basics of RPG. We hired on another manager and a just-graduated RPG
programmer from a local university. Both showed me some more ins and outs of
RPG. A lot of experimentation was warranted, since the manuals didn't
generally have full-fledged program samples. Thank goodness for the Internet
and this mailing list! (Thanks David!!) I learned a lot just by
reading/listening to the conversations here and Midrange-L. My coworkers
helped a lot. And more manual and book reading and experimentation.

My advice is at first, program with the manuals at the ready. Become
familiar with the keywords/opcodes/bifs (true for any language). Today it is
much easier with free form, named indicators, prototyped calls, etc. Even if
one doesn't use its full capabilities, learn the RPG cycle. If you need to
maintain some old II/III (or heck, IV) code that is cycle based. I remember
my first encounter and thinking it was magic. I came from other procedural
languages (primarily dBase III+/IV) where you told the program how to do
everything. The cycle's "magic" of handing records to the mainline was tough
to grasp at first.

I'll just wrap it at that before it tuns into a rambling session.
--Loyd