Re: RPG and Web.. (was Using OO concepts in RPG)

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Scott Klement wrote:
> As an IT manager, am I to only hire programmers that have proficiency in
> all 7-9 different languages that we need to do things "right" in your
> opinion?  Or am I to spend time & money training them in all of these
> technologies?
>
> In either case, it results in higher costs to my company, either in salary
> or in training/time or both.  It also results in a difficult environment
> to manage.
>
> Sure, in a huge corporation like IBM it makes perfect sense to have
> different people working in different languages.  Then, just send the
> project to the place where it is most appropriate.
>
> But, in a smaller company, such as mine, where we've got 3 people in the
> IT department, it's completely unrealistic to think that we're going to
> support doing every project in a different language just because you think
> it might save us a few hours of coding.
>
> We already work in RPG, C, CL, DDS, VB, and Bourne Shell.   We don't need
> to add other languages to that list of requirements!

To be fair, that's not an unreasonable argument. But I still like 
playing devil's advocate, so here goes a counter argument:

Let's say your competitor down the road has a staff of two 
developers fluent in tools that provide a definite productivity 
improvement. That may well translate into a competitive edge for 
that other company. What does your company do then? Push your IT 
staff to work harder to keep up with the competition? Cut the 
education budget for your IT staff further? Cut corners elsewhere in 
your company?

Cheers! Hans