Re: [Re: RPGILE V4.3 Gotcha] -- RPG400-L

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
>
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