RE: those darn newfangled languages WAS: RPG III

If by "recruit new programmers" you mean get RPGIII and RPG IV developers to
switch companies, then I agree. People tend to like to work with the new stuff.
But people like money more. They won't switch if getting more affordable means
that they take a pay cut. Not in today's economy. 

Today, the Kraft's and Allstate's of the world are looking for programs in the
$45k/year space (give or take). If they need RPGIII they pay $45k. If they need
C++/Java, they pay $45k.

The problem isn't /free or not /free. I recently spoke with people at both these
companies, and they have the same issue getting Microsoft programmers out of
college "kids" as they do getting RPG programmers from college kids. 
The fact is, IT is no longer cool and people are going majoring in the "I want
to own my own company and get rich" careers. Once 95% of them fail at that,
they'll either be going back to school or taking jobs at Restaurants around the
country.

If iSeries shops started hired people at $85k, $120k and up, and also hired more
people then the job market would have NO problems finding people. Sure you get
some temporary relief if you need someone and you use RPG IV and /free and that
someone is ready to move from their current $45k/year job to a $50k job. But
one-off situations are not a pattern and we should never expect that a "pattern
of one" is a trend. 

Disclaimer:  Adjust that $45k/year to your local region/country. Certainly many
RPG developers are making $85k/$95k and some more than $100k, but obviously it
is regionalized. 

-Bob Cozzi
www.i5PodCast.com
Ask your manager to watch i5 TV



-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Doug Palme
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 10:58 AM
To: 'RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: RE: those darn newfangled languages WAS: RPG III

How does one define "affordable"?

I know that within our area, one company thinks that programmers should be
found in the 35k range while another company is willing to spend 2 to 3
times that amount.


-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Jon Paris
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 10:37 AM
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: those darn newfangled languages WAS: RPG III

One of Susan's arguments for using /free was that it looks more like

"modern" languages like Java and C, which the few kids coming out of college
IT courses are used to.

Since Susan doesn't hang out on this list I'll just add one comment on her
behalf.  This was not a pie-in-the-sky statement and sure as hell isn't the
IBM line since they don't recommend converting at all!

This is based on customers who have contacted us to tell us how much easier
it became to recruit new programmers once they switched to /Free.  One of
the biggest problems in the System i market place right now is the
availability of entry-level programmers.  In the last 12 months I have had a
significant number of managers tell me that they are considering a move away
from the system because they can't find affordable programmers.  (But let's
not start another discussion on that - it has been done to death on Midrange
Jobs recently!)

Most people aren't looking for just RPG skills any more.  They want some
HTML, XML, maybe Java, etc.  A young programmer who was trained in PHP,
Python, C#, Java, C++ or whatever can easily pick up RPG.  But show them
fixed-form and they'll run for the hills.  Show them /Free and they tend to
say "hey I can learn that".

Again this is not a "belief" it was something that came to us from customers
and we have been passing it along to others who face recruitment problems.
 
Jon Paris
Partner400

www.Partner400.com