RE: Missed the fact that a line was commented out...

Joel,
"Giving them a PC that..."
While you did not say it, this statement reminds me that many people in our
market space (and I'm not say you are this way) wait until the employer
"gives them" the thing they need. Whereas in many other IT market spaces,
the programmer will go out and pay for it themselves or figure out a way to
force the employer to get it for them. 
It is very strange that people in our marketspace who are making a lot of
money, worry about $80 or $150 expense items related to their job. My
brother is a mechanic and has spent over $4000 in tools so he can do his job
better. He does not make as much as a good RPG programmer makes. But I'll
bet that most (all?) "good RPG programmers" haven't spent even $200 in there
lifetime on things they needed to do their job. 
People active on this list are usually the exceptions since this list is
very tiny compared to the market space as a whole.
At a client of mine where they all had PC's with 256Mb in them. A couple
programmers wanted to use CODE/400 and one wanted to try WDSc. But none of
them was willing to ask for more memory for the corporate-issued PC. So I
took them out and paid for their memory upgrades and we installed them in
their systems, unofficially. Cost me about $400 or so if I remember right.
Then they offered to take me to lunch. When the bill came they said "We'll
get that." Then one of the co-workers said "Make sure to take the receipt so
we can turn it in." Their net-cost? Zero, their employer's cost? About $45
for pizza for five.
So why couldn't those 4 people go out and pay $100 at the time for memory
for their own PCs that they use day in and day out? SO the company gets to
keep the memory if they ever leave, so what? While you get to use it you get
things done faster, can run WDSc or CODE/400 and you get to go home to your
family on time more often.
It is an interesting sociological phenomenon. I'm not saying this is a wrong
attitude, it is just different from many other environments.  

-Bob Cozzi
www.RPGxTools.com
If everything is under control, you are going too slow.
- Mario Andretti


-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Joel Fritz
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 1:33 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: RE: Missed the fact that a line was commented out...


I have 512 meg and wdsci runs acceptably.  I only use it for editing
green screen stuff.  CODE400 is included in the package and, as you
said, it runs on a less powerful pc.  It can give you the same
productivity boost for straight coding.

To run Win XP with more than a couple of apps going you need 512 meg
anyway to have a relatively pleasant experience.  I bought a home pc
about 18 months ago for $700 that's big enough to run WDSCI reliably.
They're cheaper now.  Programmers may not need a gamer type pc, but I
think there's a strong business case for giving them a pc that is at
least as powerful as one other people use for e-mail, word processor,
spreadsheet, and web browsing.  My employer is pretty frugal when it
comes to pcs.   

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Cozzi
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 11:12 AM
To: 'RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: RE: Missed the fact that a line was commented out...

The problem with WDSc is the cost. It is so expensive. I know, I know it
is "free" but if you don't already have a PC big enough to run it, it is
a $1000 per programmer product. Granted that was $2500 per programming
some 18 months ago, and will continue to fall, but so will oil prices.
Today it is very costly to get into WDSc. CodeSTudio and CODE/400 can
run on a Piece-of-S--- (aka "POS") PC with little trouble. Someday all
PCs will have 1GB memory minimum and we'll be calling them POS's because
8 to 16 GB will be the high-end.

-Bob Cozzi
www.RPGxTools.com
If everything is under control, you are going too slow.
- Mario Andretti


-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Joel Fritz
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 12:27 PM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: RE: Missed the fact that a line was commented out...


Hmm...It was faster than SEU for me in about an hour.  Just having the
tab key move the cursor from field to field in fixed format gave me a
boost.  For the first week I used mostly SEU line commands and gradually
learned how to use the tools in WDSCI (well I stared with CODE400.)

The help that comes with the product explains the editor pretty well.



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