RE: Product Enhancement by Voting? -- MIDRANGE-L

Hans, I sort of agree with you but not perfectly.  What are you trying to
tell me?  Please allow me quote from an earlier note:

>When we started working on the V5R1 ILE RPG compiler, we sent
>around a poll asking for input on what should go into the next
>release.  Multi-dim arrays came up just a few items below the
>items that were chosen for inclusion.  Whenever we get around
>to starting on V5R1+1, we'll very likely do another enhancement
>poll, and my prediction is that multi-dim arrays will finally
>get voted in.

Then I complained about the voting.  Recently, you said:

>That's more or less how things work today.  We have a small
>group of RPG compiler writers and language planners deciding
>on release content guided by customer input.  Our semi-
>regular enhancement poll is used to provide input to our
>decisions, but we certainly don't consider the poll results
>to be binding.

Does the voting matter or does it not matter?  I have participated in the
IBM design review process - made my comments, attacked and defended, voted,
won and lost.  We nearly killed too-tall John Brock when he presented the
ILE debugger to our group in the trailers in 1993.  I can still see some
things in the OS and the languages that I participated in.  I'm not trying
to say that the process is broken - I don't think that it is.  I am
concerned when someone brings up voting for product features.  I think that
it is slightly ridiculous and out of place - as if I wore my red plastic
helmet with the bilateral beer-can holders to a funeral.  However, I then
repeat the sentence below and ask, "should we worry?"

>We cannot leave the decisions to the language writers because,
>in almost every case, they have a lot of experience creating a
>compiler but very little experience using the target language
>to solve business problems.

No, all is well.  As you noted above, that is what the language planners are
supposed to bring.  It isn't perfect but it isn't bad.  Throw in some
developers from the large software houses and a consultant or two (Al Barsa
or his ilk) and you have a competent team.

But, there is a much more important problem.

The AS/400 is under siege from the NT- and Unix-based software houses.
Based on their language choice, those people have a very small vocabulary -
C.  Since the Unix/NT people represent new sales for the AS/400, IBM cannot
afford to ignore them.  When they vote, somebody is going to listen.  New
development money and inside access will be lavished on them - it would be
foolish not to.

There are thousands of AS/400 developers whose vocabulary doesn't include C
and who, for several reasons, can't or won't get access to it.  For their
future, they want you to add some of the new stuff they have heard about to
the old language.  But not too much and not too fast - they don't want to be
kicked out of their comfort zone - and, of course, it has to be free.  Those
people represent a group that upgrades their systems and adds machines to
existing clusters - a steady source of revenue.  IBM can't afford to ignore
them either.  We can see their power when we look at how long matching
record lasted.

[You compiler writer guys must have a lot of wisdom to live in a battlefield
like that - and I'll bet you guys are QUICK too!]

Based on this quick look and a profound ignorance of the facts, I would
invest most of my development dollars on the new stuff.  I would build
features that will help to sell the box into new markets.  I would spend
small but not zero dollars on maintaining a solid connection between the old
languages and the new operating system features because existing AS/400
customers are less likely to defect to NT and Unix if "their" features are
regularly upgraded.  In my blissful cocoon of ignorance, I would probably
balance the funding 75-25 or 80-20 and that is real money.

Circling back to the language enhancement issue for a minute, should the
investment in RPG be increased to include a bunch of new language features?
Based on where the new money is coming from, investing in RPG would be
silly!  Does anyone honestly think that there will be significant new
application development using the RPG language?  Even an old crustacean like
me can see where the new business is coming from.  IBM is not a social club
and it isn't a charity - it has to fight hard to keep up and it has to get
lucky to get ahead.  RPG is a poor bet for the future.

Does this logic apply to anything else on the box?  Like the operating
system for example?  In my opinion, maybe.  There are two things wrong with
OS/400 and they are both pretty hard to fix - it takes too long to make
changes and they can only come from one source.  I think that the OS
discussion can wait for another note.

Ladies and gentlemen, I can't claim to be smart (too much evidence to the
contrary) but I can't deny that I am "experienced" and this is what my
experience tells me.  It seems to me that a few of our plans and assumptions
may need to be examined in the light of these ideas.


Richard Jackson
mailto:richardjackson@richardjackson.net
www.richardjacksonltd.com
Voice: 1 (303) 808-8058
Fax:   1 (303) 663-4325


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