Re: Time to get serious

I agree. The majority of programmers either don't know about RPG or have a
preconceived notion based on long ago experience. And who should be blame
for this? Well...look around at the RPG programmers you know. How many are
comfortable using built-in functions? Procedures? ILE? Free form? Mixed case
statements for crying out loud?

The iSeries community doesn't like change. The people that are on this and
other lists are the exception, not the rule. Will this change? It could...if
the iSeries maintains/gains some critical mass and it's embraced more by
industry.

Teaching it in the schools doesn't matter until there's a demand. As more
boxes are installed, more programmers will  be needed. It's not the other
way around - more trained programmers does not equal more industry adoption.
IBM needs to market and sell these boxes as whatever - server consolidation
or ecommerce or the buzz word du jour...and then there will be a need.

On 2/28/05 08:25 PM, "Joe Lee" <LeeJD@xxxxxx> wrote:

> He's right about the  "Not regarded in well rounded IT circles". Of
> course thats largely because its  "Unknown in most IT circles". How many
> programmers under 35, other than those who have programmed on an
> AS400/iSeries, have even heard of RPG, not many. And of those few who
> have heard of it, I'll bet that most of the think its some old, dead,
> language. RPG isn't even included on any of the charts I've seen that
> trace the development of programming languages, or on any of the lists
> of programming languages I've seen. In 5 years of Computer Science
> classes it was never mentioned, not even in the "Programming Languages"
> class that was supposed to talk about various obscure languages. And
> those few people who have heard of RPG probably think of RPGII or older,
> which you have to admit doesn't do anything good for it's reputation.
> 
> One of the things IBM needs to do is to expose the academic world to
> how great "new" RPG is, and how great the iSeries is. If new CS and
> business majors came out of college with the idea that the iSeries was a
> great, new, state of the art computer I bet there would be a lot more
> demand for it. Heck, if they came out of college with the knowledge of
> the existence of the iSeries it would be great. Instead most people
> think of "mainframes", and most people would probably classify the
> iSeries as a mainframe, as ancient dinosaurs that died out 20 years ago.
> When they find out that the business that just hired them still uses one
> of these ancient computers they push for the business to "get with the
> times", cause everyone knows that Unix or wintel boxes are what business
> should be running on. Can you even get the tubes to repair those old
> mainframes anymore? And weren't they the cause of all that time and
> money we spent on Y2K, why do we still have them.
> 
> Joe Lee
> 
>>>> joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 02/28/2005 17:06:21 >>>
> Oh my, Dave <wiping tears>.  I haven't laughed this loud in a while.
> 
> But let's do something, shall we?  Let's you and I sit down and write
> an
> MRP generation.  I'll use RPG, you use the super powerful language of
> your choice.  Mine will be done faster, run quicker and have more
> features than yours, guaranteed, or I'll publicly get on this list and
> apologize.
> 
> But until then you're just trolling, dude.  And that being the case,
> don't expect any more responses from me until you either take me up on
> my challenge or at least explain what language is better for
> navigational database access and why, rather than taking unfounded
> potshots at RPG. 
> 
> Joe
> 
> P.S. "Not regarded in well rounded IT circles"?  Oh no!  Not the well
> rounded IT circles!  <giggling profusely>
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> From: Dave Odom
>> 
>> Joe,
>> 
>> Others may have pointed this out but....
>> 
>> Yes, it IS time for YOU to get serious with your statements:
>> 
>> "... the power that only RPG can bring you.  You must be joking...
> As
>> there are many other languages that are super powerful and available
> on
>> the iSeries.
>> 
>> "RPG: assembly language for your database,"   Again, you must be
> joking
>> and I caution you not to say that around anyone that works on other
>> platforms; you'll embarrass yourself.   RPG is NOT assembly
> language!!
>> Its Report Program Generator.
>> 
>> "available only on the iSeries!"   Yep, while somewhat powerful, no
>> other platform would have RPG; they laugh at it.  It's esoteric and
>> oriented to one platform of consequence and not regarded in well
> rounded
>> IT circles.
>> 
>> Again, I would not shout the above too loudly.
>> 
>> Dave Odom