RE: /FREE RPG compiler errors

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> --- Joe Pluta <joepluta@PlutaBrothers.com> wrote:
> >...  I'll be okay.
>
> Yeah, I figured as much. <g>

I'm going to do something daring and crazy.

I'm going to give up on this conversation <grin>.

Everybody's got their opinion, and mine is almost entirely based on my
personal feeling that the most important asset in most shops is NOT the new
code they are writing, but the old code that works.

Now, you may choose to disagree with me on this.  That's fine.  Don't expect
me to argue with you on this point.  My background working as long as I have
at software shops has proven this fact to me: of the code that makes most
midrange shops work today, by far the majority was written a LONG time ago.

And that does NOT make it bad.  In fact, it has a crucial advantage over
newly written code: it is tested and it works.

And one of the reasons I get so much pushback is that the majority of people
on this list, and indeed on most lists, are people who want to write new
code, with the newest tools, and use the newest technologies.  People want
new, if only because they will get more goodies.

Frankly, many shops that I work with don't NEED new goodies.  They'd much
prefer that their old goodies do what they need.

They'd rather be able to code this:

FHTMLDSP  CF  E           BROWSER

       EXFMTPAGE1


...than have to have a 2GHz, 1GB PC to write out a simple page.

Dependence on new technology does one thing - it sells new technology.  And
don't think that IBM is above forcing you to new technology just to increase
revenue.  But to me, making a client rewrite a system that has worked for
ten years just to keep current - well, that's about as anti-productive as I
can think.

Anyway, like I said, the whole /free thing has been beaten to death.  I just
didn't like the implication that not jumping on the /free bandwagon makes me
or any of my clients lazy or lacking in ambition.  In reality, many of my
clients do indeed want to do their jobs without having to learn a whole
bunch of new technologies.  And they shouldn't have to.  They've already
invested their time in gettnig their systems working.  Consultants may need
this stuff, working stiffs don't.

Joe