Re: Preferences for developing the i beyond the 5250 user interface

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 1:02 PM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 1/12/2013 8:18 PM, Booth Martin wrote:

I want to develop my own skills to get the job done, and I am seeing far
too many choices out there to feel comfortable with my ability to pick
the right paths forward. I have spent time working with: VARPG, OS/2,
GWT, Java, HTML, JSON, XML, Zend & PHP, EGL, and other offerings. The
more I learn, the more uncomfortable I become with my skill at making
choices; hence this desire to hear what others have to say.

This used to bother me, but not any longer. Waiting (effectively doing
nothing) is easily the worst choice. Pick one and go.

Definitely. Learning practically anything is better than learning
nothing. There isn't one universally best path forward, and some of
the sideways-looking paths are plenty worthwhile too.

Of the list
above, some are fundamental to all of the choices. Everyone should know
enough HTML, XML and JSON to at least follow an AJAX transaction around.
The real choices are between Java and .NET, with PHP and EGL at the
back of the pack. Pick any one of these four and you will always find
work.

If you are only looking at Booth's explicitly listed choices, I
definitely agree. I would stress that "back of the pack" here is
still way ahead of "do nothing". PHP in particular is still extremely
pervasive on the Web.

To this I would add that plenty of stuff not on the original list is
also very worthwhile, and depending on circumstances and personal
inclinations, could be better choices than Java and .NET.

When we've all retired, the
young will learn RPG the same way we did - the seat of their pants. All
of the difficulty has thankfully been removed from RPG. No more
matching record, look ahead fields, stacker select, detail time, total
time - all gone. The kids'll do fine.

Again, I agree with this, but would amplify: RPG is not hard to
learn. Even the cycle and much of the "old-school" stuff. It's all
very accessible to programmers who have cut their teeth on practically
any other language. And *because* of this, I think that as career RPG
programmers retire, they'll be replaced by programmers who don't
specialize in (or even know, beforehand) RPG.

John