Re: RPG Cycle (was: RPG IV Certification)

I said this in another email.

"Sure, an understanding of the cycle and its benefits is key to learning
RPG. But coding with it is no longer needed."

I live in a fantasy world where I get to teach my customers how to code with
more modern techniques. Why? Simply to reduce the cost of maintenance. Using
more modern techniques will mean IT can be more responsive, and we CAN do
more with less. Unfortunately, this will mean you will be out of a job.
Sorry about that.

If you need a job, I will come back to reality and the cycle.




On 8/20/07 3:16 PM, "rick baird" <rick.baird@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 8/20/07, Trevor Perry <trevor@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yes. Those are DP managers from the 70s.

And they dominate the contractor world. maybe you live in a fantasy
land where you don't have to deal with DP managers from the '70s, but
I don't.

For anyone who knows, RPGIV and ILE are the current invocations of the
language. You can find education for them all over. Cycle education is much
thinner. And, when you get there, you have less maintenance, and are more
modern. Show me an RPG cycle program that is truly modular? How about
documentation of what is happening in the RPG cycle? A COBOL programmer
could not read a cycle program for trying (wtf is *INZSR anyway) but they
can read RPGIV free format.

what "training" is needed? the cycle can be learned by reading a
single chapter in the RPG manual and for those who still don't get it,
one competent person taking two minutes to walk through a simple
example.

And, fwiw, moving FORWARD is always a good thing in our industry. Staying
with your 25 year old code is not going to help if IBM gets a clue and
starts making us pay to compile old code...

I'm all for moving forward and will use ILE techniques when writing
new stuff if the client has no preference or prefers I do. But if it
means the difference between getting the gig or going without, I'll
choose to get paid.

I have to ask - would you advise a new rpg programmer to _not_ learn
what the cycle does? if so, why?