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I came into the AS/400 world from the RPG world. I had never seen, nor heard of an AS/400 before that, nonetheless RPG. I was hired based on my total years programming and all the languages I knew. When I started there were no other programmers here, nor are there now. I was basically dumped in front of a green screen, told it was an AS/400, given a sign on, and given my first project, to fix a nightly transfer problem between two AS/400's using QSNADS on a dial up line that were not "balancing" right. Along with a few other things I was to fix, like changing a value displayed on a S/36 display screen and adding a new field. I grabbed the manuals and dug in, and did fixed both, the display problem inside of a few days, the transfer problem inside of 2 weeks. Needless to say, I did not have time to read the manual cover to cover. Any manual. I would go to the manuals when I needed to learn how to do something. Within 2 months I had read a few of the manuals cover to cover, including the CL, RPG and DDS books. And whenever something came up I would refer to them. After 2 months I went to a class to learn RPG and CL and DDS, but at that point they didn't teach me but very little, since I had already learned it on my own, and knew it better than people who had been programming for over 2 years in RPG (there were 3 of them in the class). I am not only the programmer here, but the network engineer, system analyst, PC installer, software installer, software troubleshooter, ad nausium. If it plugs into the wall, I have to deal with it sooner or later. I have to order it, fix it, maintain it, upgrade it, analyze it, explain how to use it, etc... And when I find the time I can actually do what I was hired to do, be a programmer. If I spent the time reading the manuals, I wouldn't have time to program. Regards, Jim Langston Alan Campin wrote: > Hans wrote: > > >> I hope this doesn't sound rude, but how can any programmer use any > >> programming language without being intimately familiar with the > >> corresponding documentation? > > Unfortunately, that is my exact experience. The first thing I do when I have > a problem or start working on something I haven't dealt with is pull the > documentation and see what is says but over and over again through the years > I have dealt with programmers who absolutely will not read the manuals. > Drives me crazy. > > -----Original Message----- > From: boldt@ca.ibm.com [mailto:boldt@ca.ibm.com] > Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 1999 6:42 AM > To: RPG400-L@midrange.com > Subject: Re: [Re: RPGILE V4.3 Gotcha] > > Jim wrote: > >No, I have not read the area on math, because the only math I am > >doing on this machine is 2 significant decimal digits in length, > >at the most 3. We are dealing with dollars and cents here. The > >point is, I shouldn't HAVE to read the manual. > > Oh dear oh dear oh dear! > > I hope this doesn't sound rude, but how can any programmer use any > programming language without being intimately familiar with the > corresponding documentation? > > Sure, we could have come up with better rules for decimal precision. > But please don't criticize the existing rules while admitting you > don't even understand them. > > Cheers! Hans > > Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com > > +--- > | This is the RPG/400 Mailing List! > | To submit a new message, send your mail to RPG400-L@midrange.com. > | To subscribe to this list send email to RPG400-L-SUB@midrange.com. > | To unsubscribe from this list send email to RPG400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com. > | Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: > david@midrange.com > +--- > +--- > | This is the RPG/400 Mailing List! > | To submit a new message, send your mail to RPG400-L@midrange.com. > | To subscribe to this list send email to RPG400-L-SUB@midrange.com. > | To unsubscribe from this list send email to RPG400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com. > | Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com > +--- +--- | This is the RPG/400 Mailing List! | To submit a new message, send your mail to RPG400-L@midrange.com. | To subscribe to this list send email to RPG400-L-SUB@midrange.com. | To unsubscribe from this list send email to RPG400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com. | Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com +---
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