Re: Basic source control for RPGLE/CLLE/DDS

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 1:08 PM, Scott Klement
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Upgrading from 6.1 to 7.1 on IBM i is analogous to upgrading from Windows
Vista to Windows 7. Yeah, you can do it, and Windows 7 is still serviceable.
But almost everyone has moved on to Windows 8 or 10, and you are left
behind. (Except, unlike Windows, just about everything will run perfectly
on the new versions of IBM i. On Windows compatibility is broken
frequently, on IBM i it's very rare that compatibility is broken.)

That hasn't been my Windows experience. I get new versions of Windows
much slower than most folks, and definitely much slower than Microsoft
would like, but I haven't had many compatibility issues. Actually, I
honestly can't remember having any. Ever. I know I was very surprised
at how long I was able to keep using old DOS programs. And everything
I've run on XP still runs on 7. I honestly do not recall ever
abandoning a program because it couldn't run on my new PC. It's always
been the case that I've upgraded my software because I wanted a new
version of that software, or a competing product that was attractive
enough to get me to switch, not because the old one didn't work on a
new machine.

On the other hand, we have been forced to migrate away from working
IBM midrange software when upgrading to a new system.

And that's the thing with both Windows and IBM i: software *tends to*
(not always, but definitely most of the time) move along at roughly
the same pace as the operating system and the market/community
surrounding it. I don't doubt some people experience Windows
compatibility issues. But given how much more software there is for
Windows, and the comparative cost of that software, I think the
overall compatibility picture is pretty much a wash, with both scoring
quite high.

John Y.