RE: Broadening my horizons

Thanks

-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Paris [mailto:jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2016 11:00 AM
To: Midrange-L Midrange-l <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Broadening my horizons

"Books and tutorials give a basic "Dick & Jane" understanding, but I'm hung up on how to move forward. Maybe it's just a form of writers block.”

I think the “block” may be the biggest part of your problem.

I encounter a lot of people who play around with new languages and tools but find it difficult to take the next step because they have no specific purpose in mind. Sounds like you are in that boat.

Two approaches that you might consider:

1) Look for a local charity, church, or whatever that needs a new system and offer to build it for them. Use SQL, Node.js, PHP, Python, whatever takes your fancy.

2) Look at the applications your employer is looking at replacing and develop a better version of one of them. Convert the database to use SQL, constraints etc., use the RPG code base for stored procs for the business logic, use node.js for the UI. It doesn’t matter if your employer never uses it - you will have a demonstrable modernization skill to show to your next employer.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com