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On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 01:04:43 -0600, Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I agree this is a tough situation.  But at the same time, there are tons
> of good RPG programmers out there, they just tend to not work for entry
> position money, and I think that's your problem.  You want RPG
> programmers at entry-level prices, and those are few and far between.

I don't know where you got that idea, because I certainly did not say
that.  I will clarify what I DID say.

1.  We have work right now and want pros with the skills to pay the
bills.  We will pay them what they're worth.  It's worth it to us to
have someone who can come in and make an immediate impact.

2.  We want young guys who can come in and learn from these pros,
learn the business and be our workhorses for the long haul.

> But there's a reason for that.  When you hire an RPG programmer, you
> typically get someone who is not only conversant in a very productive
> language, but they also tend to understand business.  Sure, you can hire
> someone from college for a relatively low salary, but you get what you
> pay for.

See above.  However, our business needs are pretty specific (trucking,
especially LTL trucking).  I don't expect to find many people with
experience specific to our industry.  We'll teach the business to the
old pros.  That's not a problem.

But I'm on a 30 year time horizon here.  That's why I want the young
guys as well.  I want to build this business for the long haul.  I
understand that the landscape will change dramatically over the next
30 years, but who's to say that RPG can't be made even better over the
next 30 years?

> So what to do?  Well, one thing you can do is to leverage your assets.
> Start working towards a deployment model that can make use of both
> old-style RPG programmers and entry-level programmers using things like
> Java.  What you want is a tiered architecture in which the Java guys
> build the UI and the RPG guys build servers to encapsulate the business
> logic.  Designed correctly, such an architecture lets you take advantage
> of both sides to do lots of work.

That's what I'm looking for.  But as we build a critical mass of Java
programmers and our RPG programmers retire off, what do we do?  If we
reach a tipping point where we no longer have and no longer can
acquire competency in RPG, what do I do?

Mike E.

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