Re: RPGIII to get a facelift?

[Scott Klement <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> One of the things I constantly hear from programmers is that their boss will
> not let them convert from III to IV because "it will cost money".  In other
> words there is no perceived cost in staying where they are.

There's a big cost to upgrading to RPG IV. You have to pay for training,
you have to pay programmers for their time in making the conversion from
RPG III to RPG IV, and for the time they spend testing.

I think it's important to realize that it's the users and the customers
who drive IT budgets.  How much money is spent on programming almost
always depends on what the USER is going to get in return, NOT what the
programmer is going to get.

If the RPG IV screens are identical to the RPG III screens -- the users
haven't gained anything.

This is what I was trying to say in the last message -- there needs to be
an INCENTIVE.  There's got to be some advantage to the user or to the
customer in order for the change to make sense.

You can tout service prgorams, subprocedures, free-form, longer variable
names, etc until your blue in the face -- users will never see the
difference, and so companies won't want to spend money on it.

Make it easy for the programmers to give the users what they want...
modern GUI interfaces instead of 5250, spreadsheets or PDF documents
instead of green bar reports.  Make it rich, fast, and powerful without
making it inordinately complicated.