RE: Death of the RPG Programmer

>My own opinion is that it is a dip following on from Y2K, but I think
>its a dip that RPG will not recover from. Cross-train now!

Many of the consultants in the past were actually staffing positions. Companies
did this for the most part because they were not able to find enough permanent
people. That seems to have been completely reversed with many former
consultants taking full time positions.

I think many companies have had their IT budgets trimmed this year after the
Y2K expenditures of the past few years. The money available is not targeted
at ERP but rather "e" technologies.

Because of the increase in staff, I think a lot of companies are allowing their
staff to develop web projects rather than bring in consultants do this.

As far as cross training goes, we should be constantly doing this anyway.
Unfortunately, I see where many RPGers have been doing their 40 a week
and nothing more. I think that is one reason why RPG IV was so slow to
catch on and why tools like Code/400 are so underused. We all know that
Brad hates Java, but he will also be the first to tell you to learn RPG IV,
HTML, JavaScript, etc. This includes how to use the C-APIs from RPG for
CGI, IFS, etc.

Is Java and WebSphere going to be the glorious solution? Maybe - maybe not.
Should you learn them? Definitely. I've become certified in Java 2. I've taken
courses in WebSphere and practiced with it. Right now I'm reading a book on
Oracle. I've bought books on EJBs, Apache webserver and UML. I recently
read the book "Code Complete" that is referred to on these lists.

I don't believe the RPG programmer is dead. I do believe that the days where
RPG programmers can be complacent and not learn anything new are dead.
If you are not good at RPG IV, then that is one area that you should start on
immediately. Get the book "Java for the RPG Programmer" regardless if you
are going to learn Java or not. E-business is not just a passing fancy. There
are 2 good books that you need to get. Brad Stone's "e-RPG" and Bob
Cancilla's "e-business with AS/400". Get familiar with XML as I think this
technology will continue to emerge. Learn a GUI development tool so that
you understand how that works (VB, VA/RPG, Java, etc.).

If you don't subscribe to a trade rag (i.e. News/400 or MidrangeComputing),
then start. Read it each month, all articles. Try out the code to see what
it does and how it works.

Joe Teff
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