RE: Death of the RPG Programmer -- MIDRANGE-L

At 09:50 AM 06/13/2000 -0500, you wrote:

When you listen to IBM talk about our awesome Java Performance on the 
AS/400, and how they benchmark it against everything else under the sun (I 
could have chosen to use a capital "S", but decided to be more generic.), 
what you don't hear them talk about is how well Java performs compared to 
RPG.  RPG, for traditional processing, knocks the socks off Java, but IBM 
is scared to say so.

If IBM ever chose to market the AS/400, they would not only devastate the 
remainder of the computer industry, but also the remainder of IBM, and they 
know it!

Al


> >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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Al Barsa, Jr. - Account for Midrange-L
Barsa Consulting, LLC.  
400 > 390

Phone:          914-251-1234
Fax:            914-251-9406
http://www.barsaconsulting.com
http://www.taatool.com

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