Re: Standards and Egos (was RE: ILE Propoganda)

Aye.  I don't think it serves any company to argue over standards.

I'm with a company where I have complete control over the AS/400,
I can use any standards I want.  We merged with another company that
uses their own AS/400s and they have their own standards.  I had 
suggested to them that they take a look at ILE and what it could do
to their manager, overviewed some of the benefits, and left it at
that.

One time I needed to write a program that would transfer a file from
my system onto their system and upload the records.  This was a
pretty involved application, it involved receiving the file on our
system initially from one of our customers, importing the records on
our system (which it already does), transferring the file to their 
system, and uploading them there.

I wrote the entire application using ILE, building a service program
from 3 modules I created on their system for some system functions
(date routines, system routines to use the WRKNETF APIs, and another
module that incorporated some of the functions on their application).
I coded, tested, and implemented.

Then the manager called and had me walk through the process and what
this application did.  I explained how we received it, how we sent it
to their system, had a batch job that ran in the job scheduler in the
morning check every hour for this file then sleep for an hour, then
it received the file, imported it and was finished.

He looked at the program, and was impressed that the program that 
waited for the file was written in RPG and not CL among other things.

I wrote another program for another vendors application on their system
from scratch in ILE.  Another programmer needed to call this program
from their program and botched it up.  I fixed their mistake in about
10 minutes.

Next thing I know, I'm talking to one of their programmers, and he tells
me that his manager wants him to write all new stuff in ILE.

Actions speak louder than words.  Show the benefits, don't argue them,
and sometimes this means just biding your time.

Regards,

Jim Langston

Me transmitte sursum, Caledoni!


Bill Heinz wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Stone, Brad V (TC)" <bvstone@taylorcorp.com>
> To: <RPG400-L@midrange.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 9:35 AM
> Subject: Standards and Egos (was RE: ILE Propoganda)
> 
> >
> > Standards are always changing.  Let's assume a shop doesn't use ILE.  If
> > someone starts using it, writing functions, etc, for a "proof of concept"
> is
> > that bad, or good?  (none of this "if they go off on their own it is!"
> crap
> > either, let's assume the proper channels are taken.)
> >
> ------------------
> 
> Oh how true.  I once did some work for a S/38 shop that had "converted"
> Cobol programmers.  Their standards were basically to use RPG but write it
> like Cobol (ie open/close all files manually, code level breaks - don't use
> I-spec level indicators, ....).  They were rewriting some programs to get
> the work done in less time.  On one of the programs that I was asked to
> write (new program), the manager asked me how I was going to write it.
> After giving an overview, he said that he felt that if I had my preferences,
> I would do something differently.  I said that there was, and he asked what
> that would be.  I suggested using matching records (this was a simple file
> merge program).  He said that because this was a one-time program and that
> they were looking at ways to make their programs more efficent, that I
> should write it with matching records.  I did and he copied the program and
> modified it to perform the match in-line.  He came in early one morning and
> ran both versions of the programs (in test environment) several times.  My
> program ran in 1/3 the time of his.  When I came in that day, he called me
> in and asked me to explain matching record logic and some other RPG
> "features" that they had avoided.  He remarked that if they could get that
> kind of performance increase, that they needed to look at using some of them
> (ie change their standards).
> 
> I know for many RPG matching records is hard to understand, but I this
> situation it was the best "tool" to use, and I'm not wanting to start a
> discussion on the pros and cons.  My point is that a shop looked at its
> standards and was open to changing them once a "proof of concept" showed
> that there may be a good reason to change them.
> 
> _________________________________________________________
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