Re: Have you read this?

Hans,

In a message dated 1/11/00 12:35:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
boldt@ca.ibm.com writes:

<<snip>>
> Linux and Perl are successes because it's users are willing to make
>  contributions to benefit the community, not because some big
>  multinational corporation pushed them.  If you want the success of
>  the AS/400 and RPG to continue, then perhaps that's the way to
>  proceed.

Your idea is good, but the premise simply will not work for RPG.  We've tried 
several "code posting" areas here in the past, but they've failed because:

A.  No free compiler available, ergo no way to test code prior to posting.
B.  We mainly write _business_ software, so are constrained by copyright laws 
from distributing what we write because of A (no way to write stuff at night 
at home).
C.  No students here, we're all working 50-90 hours/week as it is.
D.  Due to C and the nature of the AS/400 itself (see A and B), there's no 
way to have peer review of code before it goes out to the general public.
E.  Far too few people using ILE, stored procedures, and their ilk to come up 
with a meaningful library.

IBM could provide a meaningful library, but I feel that they won't due to 
legal concerns.  Too bad too because some of the old stuff that they _USED_ 
to provide, like QUSERTOOLS, was some of the best stuff they did...

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"The best way to win an argument is to begin by being right." -- Jill 
Ruckelshaus
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