Re: Indicators

["Michael Naughton" <michael_naughton@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Scott,

A good question. I hope we hear some answers from people who have been
there. I personally haven't, but I've heard anecdotally that one big
difference is that Windows programmers tend to start from scratch instead
of maintaining existing code -- especially someone else's. This may be
partly due to the fact that the languages and environments keep changing
so often, and backward compatibility seems to have much less importance in
that world (MS Access, anyone? :-).

I think that we in the RPG world are different because most of us spend a
great percentage of our time adding on to massive pre-existing codebases.
Compatibility in everything from coding style to user interfaces to naming
conventions has a high value in our world, as we  have learned that
ignoring it leads to more work and/or other headaches down the road. I
think that's what makes us a relatively conservative group, at least when
it comes to our work environment. Some of us don't like change at all,
some like change that has a clear benefit in the near term, and only a
minority like changes with relatively long term payoffs. Personally, I'm
not so sure that's such a bad thing. . . .

RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>You never hear of things like this in Windows or Unix shops. Why is that?


Mike Naughton
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Judd Wire, Inc.
124 Turnpike Road
Turners Falls, MA  01376
413-863-4357 x444
mnaughton@xxxxxxxxxxxx