RE: Benefits of Sub-procedures -- RPG400-L

| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of McIntyre Don
| Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 2:00 PM

| --- jt <jt@xxxxxx> wrote:
| > On this, though, I don't think RPG really IS for
| > EVERYbody, and as you
| > said/implied, Don.. C, C++, Java and all that can
| > already be done on a 400,
| > so that's not really an obstacle to getting fresh
| > blood into the 400 arena.
| Hey JT,
| I guess a point that I was making with this is... How
| are we going to attract the 'fresh blood' to our
| iSeries shops if all our applications are written in
| old monolithic style RPG?

Not all RPG coders used, nor use, the monolithic style, Don...  But more to
the point, how 'bout attracting new programmers the old-fashioned way...
Because it provides paying work.

| Why would a new person want
| to come in and maintain that old stuff?

Well, I've not talked to every RPG programmer on the planet, let alone all
coders...  But I've yet to meet the person who actually prefers maintenance
over development, and the language didn't matter a bit.


| Much less try
| to develop using it.

Perhaps because it offers some *new and different ways of* producing
/solutions that user's want on a timely basis/.  Perhpas because it could
offer new and different tools than what they're used to.  Similarly I would
ask, why would anyone want to code this:

parms.transNo = %editc((%dec(transNo:%size(transNo):0) + 1):'X');

in order to increment a transaction number...???  I ask this seriously:  Why
do you need "rocket science" to add 1 to an alpha transaction number??
Iirc, seems like only one person on this list even came up with an
/alternative/, a simple data structure.  I guess because if it ain't
"modern", it ain't cool...

Businesses are not primarily about coddling people who care a /whole/ lot
more about looking cool than they do producing a solution, (one that works
like the Energizer Bunny (tm, I sure...;-)), and producing it on a
reasonable timeline (ie, cost).  At least, in my experience.

|
| If though, we start using the newer designs & features
| of ILE RPG that can easily be integrated with Java and
| the like, perhaps we can tempt a few young folks.  Not
| to mention, keeping our own jobs in the process.

This is true to an extent...  But like I said above, if you need to provide
temptations to young folks to get them interested in earning a decent
living, then that reflects on the young folks.  And to the extent what you
say is true, Don, I think that is a sad reflection.

But, unfortunately (and this is my opinion, and the future will tell), if
one needs to be a software engineer to produce business applications, then a
lot /more/ jobs will off-shore than would otherwise.  But, again this is
just in my experience, software engineers don't necessarily have the best
skill-set to develop the best business applications at least cost.

Knowing "KISS" being different than applying KISS (and I don't believe that
is jmo).