RE: Modernising the AS/400 WAS: external *PRTF -- RPG400-L

Dan Bale wrote:

>Any opportunity to learn new techniques / technology 
>must be done pretty much on my own time.  I have 
>three young kids, so there has to be a balance.

Man, I hear you there!  I have never had an employer who said to me "Hey,
take a week off of production work and read up on ReXX.  Tell us what you
think of it..."  My two children are teenagers, and I surely understand the
burden of time that work places on my life with my family.  I either worm
the new stuff in during a project or spend an hour a day "after hours" to
tinker.

>Plus, it would be extremely helpful to know that I 
>will actually be able to use what I'm learning in the 
>real world.  I haven't seen a whole lot of openings 
>for AS/400 Java programmers (read: none) in the Detroit area.

My eyes were opened after reading several modern books on programming in
general.  I really think that every programmer should read Bruce McConnell's
book "Code Complete."  What you learn isn't so much "how to make Java or C
or Pascal  do what you want" so much as "why should I avoid global
variables?  How do I decide to make a code fragment into a function or
procedure?"  Literally, these ideas are usable in any environment, any
language.

>It's nice that you have a boss that gives you the freedom 
>to choose your "weapons".  Some of us aren't so fortunate.  
>I try to urge the laggards along, but usually hit the F.U.D. wall.

I probably should not say this in a public forum, but my boss was adamantly
against the use of RPG IV.  Period.  No debate.  I went behind his back and
used it anyway.  He never noticed, and the folks that need to maintain my
newfangled code are quite happy to do so.  Oh, not because I am an excellent
programmer, but because RPG IV is so much easier to understand simply
because my style isn't hampered by hideously cryptic variable names.

I am an old-timer who thinks (thought?) of RLU as a waste.  I do all my DDS
for printer files by hand.  I will re-examine RLU now that I've seen the
posts here, but the point is that my boss has no idea if I am using an
automated tool to design printer files or a laborious hand coding process.
I may be a bit subversive, but if the boss says something patently stupid, I
ignore him.  "Don't use a modern language like RPG IV because Dopey the
junior programmer is too dull to learn it.  Yeah, we paid for it, but we're
not going to use it"  My answer is "I can't read that new format file on the
IFS unless I use RPG IV."  

Pick your battle wisely, sure, but fight that battle.  Your own career is
literally on the line.  I can still read punch cards by looking at the
holes.  Oddly enough, there isn't much demand for card-reading programmers.
The point is that if I can't understand and use modern programming ideas
(Local storage, procedures, binding/linking) I will be rapidly out of a job.
I can't afford to leave my current employer, but can I really afford to keep
myself deliberately in the programming Dark Ages?

Ignore the laggards.  They will ALWAYS be laggards, always waiting for
somebody like you to drag them along into the future.  Helping and mentoring
them may be the right thing to do, but just once, I'd like to see one of
these folks take a little initiative and do some reading on their own.  Just
once.

I feel for you, and seriously hope that I have provided you with some ideas
for helping your situation.  I guess that my fanaticism comes from being in
the Dark Ages for so long, and now I see the light of the Renaissance!  I
think that it's up to us; each individual programmer to modernise our shop
by modernising our own thinking.  If we wait for IBM to do better marketing,
or for the boss to send us to school or for the laggards to become
independent learners then we suffer the fate of the blacksmith.  Highly
skilled workers, limited to an ever-shrinking niche market, leaving the
profession one at a time.

Buck Calabro
Aptis; Albany, NY
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