RE: About prospects of AS/400 !!!!!

[Buck Calabro <mcalabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday, September 30, 1998 8:24 PM, Pavan Krishnamurthy 
[SMTP:pavankri@wipsys.soft.net] wrote:
> Hi,
>       I am a software professional working with an esteemed company. Recently
> during a discussion there was a point brought out that there is not much
> in
> store for AS/400 professionals in the future years to come and the trend
> now is migrating applications from AS/400 to S/390 and RS/6000.

This is a new twist...
Typically we are told that Windows NT will kill the AS/400, not a 
mainframe!

>       This kind of an information has made me apprehensive of continuing in
> AS/400. I would really appreciate the help if some of you out there
> could
> share their views on this and also tell me as what are the more recent
> developments that are scheduled to take place on the AS/400 and where I
> can
> get to know about the same thru the net.....

There is a huge debate going on about this right now.  One of the 
questions you need to ask yourself is "What sort of applications am I w  
orking on?"  If you are maintaining old RPG II code that has been 
"converted" to RPG III, then your AS/400 career is winding down.

If you are writing modern client/server code in RPG IV, using SQL and 
web-enabling your applications, then you can safely assume that the AS/400 
(or it's descendants) will be around for a long time.

Personally, I am writing RPG IV does, using embedded SQL and trying as 
much as possible to design using modern OO concepts wherever possible. 
 Basically, I am trying to stay as close to state of the art as possible; 
but this is good advice no matter what platform you work on.  Unix in 1998 
is not the same as Unix in 1978...

Buck Calabro
Commsoft, Albany, NY
mailto:mcalabro@commsoft.net

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