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Ok, my two cents worth. This topic has been pretty funny actually. It would seem that most of you would like to use CODE/400 but you all want someone else to pay for it. That's possibly understandable for the permanent employees but rather ridiculous for the "consultants". I liked the analogy of a mechanics tools. Most mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, etc have to provide a certain number of their own tools. It's an expected part of the job. The boss may pay for the heavy (or capital) equipment and consumables but the workers provide the hammers, saws, drills, socket set, wrenches, etc. Why should we be so different? It is reasonable to expect a client have ADTS installed if they are intending to hire programmers, that they should provide you with a desk from which to work, and that they provide a means of connecting to the AS/400. However if you want to use different tools you should provide them. Permanent employees could reasonably expect a PC to be provided but consultants should provide their own laptop. Consultants can purchase software as a business expense more easily than permanent employees but even they could be expected to provide some of their tools. They can probably make it tax deductable also. The advantage is you get to use the tools you like. I can see the arguments now: 1- CODE/400 is too expensive 2 - A laptop is too expensive 3 - Client's won't let me connect to their LAN 4 - Client's only have NPTs 5 - They don't have a lan, it's all twin-ax 6 - I'm happy with SEU, etc Refutation of 1: Given that you can try before you buy you won't pay for it unless you like it. CODE/400 costs about $900 per seat and you use it for a year so that costs you $75 a month, or about $17 a week which is less than 1/2 an hour of your chargeable time. The cost drops the longer you use it. Why would you not pay $17 dollars a week to use a better programming environment? -- it may even improve your productivity such that you are perceived as better than the next programmer and well worth your charge rate, maybe you'd get more work, maybe you could charge more! The cost is also a legitimate business expense. Refutation of 2: You can buy a reasonable laptop for about $5000 dollars and it's a tax deduction. Expecting two years use means it costs about $208 a month. If the capital outlay is too much then lease one. Either mechanism is a legitimate business expense. Refutation of 3: Make it a condition of your contract. You'd be surprised what you can get if you demand it. If all of you do it the clients will soon accept it (look at the crap they accept from MickeySoft -- couldn't resist). Or, if they provide a PC with an emulation session download the code to the PC and copy it to your laptop (since arg 2 doesn't hold water) and work on your laptop, copy it back, send it to the AS/400 and compile -- you'll have already verified it on the laptop. Refutation of 4: See 5 below or use the green screen. You aren't going to forget how to use PDM, SEU, SDA, etc. This particular client won't benfit from your new tools but others will. Refutation of 5: Get a twin-ax card for the laptop. (and an Ethernet card, and a Token-Ring card; they're all tools of the trade - buy one when you need it for a particular client). Refutation of 6: You're not being forced to change. Stay with SEU. Just don't suggest that there is no point in using other tools instead. Regards, Simon Coulter. //---------------------------------------------------------- // FlyByNight Software AS/400 Technical Specialists // Phone: +61 3 9419 0175 Mobile: +61 3 0411 091 400 // Fax: +61 3 9419 0175 E-mail: shc@flybynight.com.au // // Windoze should not be open at Warp speed. +--- | This is the Midrange System Mailing List! | To submit a new message, send your mail to "MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com". | To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com. | Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com +---
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