Re: Mono on IBM i - Porting Mono to AIX and IBM i

I don't want to make this just about my shop, Richard.  I'm trying to create a generic roadmap to get Mono into traditional IBM i shops.  If you have Microsoft development skills, enthusiasm, and time to try new things, I don't think this is a hard sell.  I'm trying to see how to make it attractive to the large number of shops that are maintaining existing business applications and may have, at most, one champion for new technologies.  Plenty of people who read this list have trouble getting RDi into their shops, much less a new technology like Mono.  So how do we get those lone early adopters to use their limited time on Mono?

Again, I don't want to make this about me.  At my shop, I can do everything right up to step 7, it's just a judgment call on my part as to whether it's worth the effort. But there are lots of shops that have one developer who's struggling to get coworkers to use RPG /free; in fact, that's a large part of my audience.  How can we help them take the plunge into Mono, and does it even make sense for them?  If you think success is predicated on demographics and enthusiasm level, then maybe Mono isn't for everybody.



On 4/18/2019 8:24 AM, Richard Schoen wrote:

I think a couple missing links to provide context for your shop:

-What skillsets does your team consist of ?

-Are they willing and able to try new stuff to stretch their legs.

-Do you provide enough enthusiasm to excite them to want to learn new stuff ?

-Are they all aging out so they don't care about new stuff ?

-Where are you in the technology decision making chain of command ?

Maybe you could provide a little context for us so we can empathize with the situation better.

Regards,
Richard Schoen
Web: http://www.richardschoen.net
Email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Phn: (612) 315-1745

-----Original Message-----
So, to kind of lay out the track for a traditional IBM i shop, the sequence of events goes something like this:

1. Determine if Mono provides any potential benefit
2. Identify a zero-cost entry point
3. Find an existing projects that can be adapted as proof of concept
4. Implement proof of concept
5. Identify required infrastructure (source control, change management)
6. Identify minimum footprint for development
7. Present to management

It looks like 1 and 2 are covered. Going through your list someone ought to be able to find a candidate for steps 3 and 4. And in fact, a formal list like that would seem to be a great thing to have in a Wiki somewhere to help with the uptake. Steps 5 and 6 are the nitty gritty stuff of what would it take to get this cool widget into production to be maintained and modified along with the rest of my application software.

This is a lot of what I'm currently doing with my series in implementing Linux in a VM. In fact, if I were able to get enough time to do something like this, I think it would be good for a few articles!

On 4/18/2019 7:39 AM, Richard Schoen wrote:
Visual Studio Community
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/

Oh, and by the way VS 2019 now has built-in full IDE support for Node and Python development and real-time debugging as well.

Damn that's cool !!

And, of course there's VS code, but that's more for text editing.