RE: ACK! What happened to ...?

[Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob wrote:

>I really want to thank all of you for suggestions to get the last 
>dinosaurs to move from SEU:

In the defence of SEU, there ARE still places where a real 5250 terminal is
the only terminal available.  The computer room console is one that springs
immediately to mind, as do warehouses and other places too dirty/cold/nasty
for a PC.

I have literally worked in all these places, writing RPG code (look Ma, I'm
on topic!) to either fix, test or sanity check data.  On 'dumb terminals'.
I am perfectly comfortable with the idea that SEU will exist forever as a
backup editor.

On an even less technical note, there are legions of programmers who feel
that waiting 5 seconds for their RPG source member to open in Code/400 is
4.5 seconds too long, and until IBM makes Code open as fast as SEU they are
reluctant to switch.  Part of this is that the benefits of working in Code
are somewhat subtle.  Think about it: if I am accustomed to SEU and have
never even used the Overlay or Skeleton line commands, why would I think
that inserting a template procedure block is a benefit?  Many, many SEU
users use C/D and 'Copy from another member' exclusively and can't envision
the benefit that a better editor offers them.  Having used a pickaxe for all
their career, they view all editors as pickaxes, not realising there are
jackhammers.  Oh well, another analogy to get flamed for!

On the least technical note, there are (believe it or no) places where there
is no Microsoft software.  To the best of my recollection, there isn't any
iSeries-savvy programmer's editor available for Unix/FreeBSD/Linux.

  --buck