Subject: Future fo AS/400??????????????:(:(

[Amir Khan <akhan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I used COBOL almost ten years on midrange system since I started my career
as a programmer, six years back I moved to the current shop and started RPG
language for on and off programming tasks but still prefer COBOL due to many
reasons. During my college time in 1985---87 while I was learning
programming languages at that time people say COBOL is getting obsolete so
don’t learn it but still it is alive. According to the latest one of the
popular industry magazine both COBOL and RPG are sharing more than 60-70%
programming load world-wide. I have few questions for the while related to
AS/400 and RPG/COBOL: Is it necessary for every shop to move toward JAVA etc
either their businesses’ nature require e-commerce/e-business or not?  Is
this possible that any new language like JAVA etc replace COBOL or RPG in
next few years? Can’t we have JAVA etc on AS/400? Can’t we develop business
applications by using RPG/COBOL as a back-end (as a main language) and JAVA
etc as a front-end tools? Is it possible that companies fire their
experienced programmers because they don’t know JAVA and hire new and fresh
JAVA programmers and expecting them to convert their complicated and
reliable applications into JAVA? 
I understand that AS/400 and RPG/COBOL will stay alive many years in the
future but in littler different structure like RPG to RPG-IV and ILE. I
would like you and other programmers to learn new technologies and languages
don't let RPG be your only programming language. Learning new technologies
and languages absolutely are in our benefit. 

Amir
System Analyst, SCC,
K.S.A.
(00-966-03-8344500 X267)

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