Evan Harris,
I disagree with you regarding:
IBM i is a niche platform
RPG is a language on a niche platform
IBM i (and therefore RPG) are not mainstream systems and therefore
most development does not take place using RPG.
My comments are:
- IBM's Watson computer is for a niche market also, right?
- The international space station in low earth orbit is a niche market
for computers and languages, right? Yet someone has to program its
computers, right? Is the international space station a dead-end career
path for a computer programmer?
- The Fortune 500 companies are a niche market also, right? Yet a VERY
high percentage of these large companies run their businesses on IBM
hardware, including IBM i on Power. The largest organizations are a
niche market that need the computer systems that IBM offers.
We know, of course, that most people work in sole proprietorships and
small businesses employing ten or fewer people. These very small
businesses do not need the IBM I, but rather, Intuit's QuickBooks.
I embrace your logic and declare that "mainstream systems" are those
that sole proprietorship businesses use. Therefore, Intuit's QuickBooks
is the predominant accounting system in America.
One of my relatives in Oklahoma is a computer programmer/consultant for
mainstream small businesses. See plettware.com for solutions written
for Microsoft Windows 98/2000/XP operating systems, ASP.Net, C#, Visual
Basic, SQL, Access, HTML, ASP, and Clarion.
midrange.com
