RE: RPG Cycle (was Multi-Occurring DS)

Hi Eric,

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Just don't be surprised if someday you can't find seasoned veterans of RPG who can maintain this code....
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Or even want to. Its bad enough trying to get new programmers to embrace ILE RPG with free-form and everything wonderful the language has to offer.

We have to get with the program (pardon the pun). I'm 37 and I haven't written a RPG program which uses a primary file in over 10 years. I have no plans to either. New IT graduates DO NOT want to learn a 30+ year old procedural language running on a single platform, and which doesn't natively support a rich client environment. How long do you guys think it would take to empty the classroom if I was going to dish up the cycle, primary files, level breaks, matching records and input specs? Its bad enough when they see the 5250 emulator! :-(

All of our development is performed in WDSCi - it seems to lessen the blow. I love RPG and I'm a true blue, but 21 year old IT graduates want PHP, MySQL, Oracle, SAP, linux, unix, java, javascript, xml, webservices, SOAP, etc...
. This is what we have to compete with these days. As the business/computing environment becomes more distributed then our skills must evolve to meet the requirements of the business. In our shop RPG powers our websites (along with apache and tomcat), it is wonderfully processing SOAP requests from business partners, it is communicating with our telephony system to allow consultants to use their phone via their 5250 sessions, it is writing all of our customer facing documents (along with java, xml and xsl-fo). THIS is what is drawing the graduates to us, and IMVHO this is the way forward for RPG AND its developers.

Cheers

Larry Ducie