RE: Old Rpg to RPG/ILE

Thanks Buck for your contribution.

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Buck
Sent: 26 October 2006 17:45
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Old Rpg to RPG/ILE

We currently have some very important and 
very old, RPGII systems that run on the AS/400.

-snip-

I am canvassing anybody who has had a similar path 
to follow to share their experience and
perhaps a few approaches that may soften our
workload to achieve our stated aims.

In my opinion, if a programmer can understand RPG IV, she can understand 
RPG II just as easily.  Especially since a mass conversion is only going 
to create RPG II code stuffed into RPG IV columns.  The other way round 
is even easier if you ask me (if I can do that, anyone can!)

Don't think of this project as a massive rewrite that has to take place 
all in one go.  Rather, consider the new things management want from 
WAS/J2EE, and write new code that takes you there.  An example is the 
stored procedure.  iSeries is so cool, we can write a subprocedure in 
RPG IV, package it in a service program and have many client programs 
use that function.  As a first step to the web, we can call it from an 
RPG-CGI program that gets fired by a client web browser.  Without any 
changes to the code, we can ALSO register it as a stored procedure and 
call it from a Java bean!

I'm in favour of having programmers do the development, rather than try 
to have a tool do a mass conversion.  I believe that in the end, you'll 
need those skills to maintain the modern application, so why go through 
the trouble of learning a tool on top of learning the new skills?  I'm 
sure others will have different ideas, and that's the value of this list!
   --buck