Re: Recommendations for a newcomer?

[Michael Schutte <mschutte369@xxxxxxxxx>]

hmm i wonder what I'm doing then... no new development in RPG. Okay.


On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Dan Kimmel <dkimmel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> RPG and COBOL are dead. No new development in these languages is being
> done. Others on this list may disagree: I ask them to provide concrete
> examples of development being done beyond a few modules in either language.
> That being said, there are millions upon millions of lines of code in both
> languages that will need maintenance and improvement for the next century
> or so.
>
> The problem is that RPG and COBOL are just not tool-able to the extent
> others are.
>
> If you want to be close to the metal, learn C. If you want to write very
> high-level stuff using standard libraries and open source libraries, learn
> Java. If you want to write code for PC that runs on Microsoft PC's learn
> Visual Basic or C#. If you want to write mobile apps, learn Java or
> Objective-C.
>
> CL is easy and doesn't take long to learn. It is has limited applicability
> besides IBMi system operations. If you want to be an IBMi systems operator
> or systems administrator, learn CL.
>
> Notice that nowhere do I mention C++. I think it is dead, too.
>
> There are other languages that have niche markets; python and php, for
> instance.
>
> If you're going to do anything with user interfaces, learn html, xml,
> javascript, CSS and xmlTransform .
>
> There's no single language you can learn that is going to carry your
> career. You're have to learn to learn new stuff every day.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
> midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Clay B Carley
> Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 10:06 AM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Recommendations for a newcomer?
>
> Being new to midrange systems, I'm attempting to pick up skills that
> will be useful for me in the future, in hopes to get a job working with
> them.  Reading articles that say things like COBOL is uncool, and RPG is
> worse isn't really giving me hope for a future working with a midrange
> system though.
>
> Is it going to be worth my time to learn things like CL, COBOL, and RPG
> now?  Or are they fading away?  It would be pretty sad to finally become
> proficient with these languages, only to find out that they are dead and
> replaced with <blah> instead.
>
> What would you recommend a newcomer focus on (aside from system
> operations)?
>
> Reading Rob's message from last week regarding "20 years of experience,
> versus one year of experience repeated 20 times" looks like a pretty
> good starting place I suppose.  I'm really trying to look at where we're
> going to be in the years to come, not necessarily tomorrow.
>
> Thanks for any suggestions,
> Clay Carley
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