Re: COMMON -Thoughts

> What did ya-all think of COMMON?

   Even though Boston was colder than San Francisco (last Spring), I
enjoyed the city much more. It was nice having all of the sessions and Expo
close together as well.
   The number of requirements seemed very small to me. Either IBM is
providing a much more complete solution or maybe people are giving up on
this way to communicate needs/wants.
   This COMMON really emphasized to me the gap that is forming between the
CISC and RISC platforms. I'm at a client that is still at V3R1. I really
felt "out of it" at this conference. I hope my next client has RISC or at
least V3R2 (so I can try out procedures). I wonder how many shops are
keeping up with the technology race and how many are being left in the
dust?
   I tried to attend some sessions dealing with certification. It has not
been an issue at all in either securing contracts or interviews when I was
job hunting a couple of years ago. I was curious about what the tests were
like and what certification entailed. I showed up for 3 sessions titled
"ICCP Review Course". None were cancelled, but no speaker ever showed. I
also attended "AS/400 Professional Certification" but this is for operators
and administrators. Nothing for analysts or programmers.
 
> Which were the  top 10 sessions?

AS/400 Future - Dr Soltis

Lab - Code/400 on Windows 95

Lab - VisualAge RPG

Closing Session - Gerry Reid

Reducing AS/400 Logical I/O Operations

User Experience with Code/400 - Vincent Greene

Lab - DB2/400 Intro to Query Mgr (I've never been at a shop that had the
SQL licensed product so this was interesting only in the fact that I've
heard of this but have never seen it before)
 
> The Best  5  EXPO  areas/booths?

I didn't really see any exibits that "blew me away". I had some issues that
I wanted to address and I was able to do that. The people at the Netsoft
booth were very helpful and directed me to the people/booths that I needed
to see.
 
> Give Aways 

The beta CD for Code/400 and VisualAge RPG (Windows 95 version) was good. I
was able to pick up a few trinkets and be a hero for my kids (sunglasses
from Seagull, Plex Ball Puzzle from Attachmate, tape measure from BGS
Systems and slinky from Assist. The bag for being on the requirements
committee was very nice as well.

> If there was one message to share with the list what might it be?

CISC is dead! It came through load and clear that IBM does not want
anything to do with this anymore. RISC is the new sherrif in town and that
is where thier total focus is.

For all those that liked the way that sequence numbers were handled in RPG3
(RPG/400) and dislike how they were implemented in RPG4, I don't think that
this will be changed. As I was told, no other compiler supports
alphanumeric sequence numbers so this needs to be taken out of RPG. Sounds
more like an ideological issue than a logistical one. From a conversation I
overheard, I don't think there is any intention to even consider this.

Joe Teff
QDS
Bloomington, MN
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