RE: Future of RPG was: Open Access for RPG -- RPG400-L

You're right, but thats not what i meant.
Existing "i" software will not move to the cloud, in ten years.It will not go anywhere, unless a company is forced.
What i meant to say is that in ten years (or meaybe even sooner) every "on-premise" platfrom is legacy.
And thinking that "i" has some future in "the cloud" is simply whishful thinking, and one should learn from past mistakes and learn/invest in technologies. Trying to influence where the "i" software market goes is like trying to push an oil tanker into a specific direction with your finger.
And i don't mean RPG-OA of course.
Platforms, infrastructure, etc, is "out", and thats a good thing (if you're a software developer).

From: Mihael.Schmidt@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Future of RPG was: Open Access for RPG
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:47:58 +0000

I think you are probably on the right way concerning our future infrastructure but I don't think that this will happen in the next 10 years. From a technological viewpoint it may happen but companies are moving too slow for this. They are not adapting so fast.

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of john e
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 10:30 AM
To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: RE: Future of RPG was: Open Access for RPG

I am hopeful that IBM will recognize the incredible opportunity they have right now to capitalize on "IBM i in the cloud"

I don't want to spoil your party, but do you really think that something like this is going to happen???
First, what is the business proposition of IBM i "in the cloud"? I don't know.I do know (well ok not really) that "cloud" is the future, it makes economic sense and it will make an end to all this "enterprise". Software development should not be done by companies themselves, they are no SD organisations, put production organisation. This is the root of all problems, i.e. the abysmal state of software development. Moving to the cloud means that specialized companies build (custom) software. These companies have professional software developers who know and are interested in, software development. The may reason why RPG'ers are so "lazy" (they aren't i know) is that99% are *not* software developers. They merely entered the field by accident. The "good" developers i know all have a real interest in software development and where already programming in e.g. Basic before they went into the field. MOst RPG'ers dont have this background. They never really choose to go in this field!
. And you really do have to have this "drive" to be good at it, reading books, magazines etc out of sheer enthousiasm and interest. You don't get to learn software development by doing an RPG/COBOL course, or Scrum or whatever. You don't get to read a book like the Mythical Man-Month e.g. But this is real knowledge, not "tooling".
So, the "business proposition" if the "i" has always been that you simply put it there in a corner and it does it's work, without a lot of maintenance etc. If everthing moves to the cloud and "on-premise" computing is only economically feasible for the biggest companies like banks etc what advantage does the "i" have in the cloud?? I don't know. A "cloud" company like Amazon has lots of trained staff for their infrastructure. There is no place for "i", it's by definition an "on-premise" platform. This will be only interesting for companies that want to move their existing "i" applications to the cloud. And i don't see that happening very soon.
The next ten years "the cloud" (sorry for the marketing hype but i'm certain this is going to be a profound shift) will transfrom IT completely. That means that *all" on-premise platforms, be it IBM "i", Windows, Unix, can *all* be considered legacy.
Like i said, don't want to spoil youor party, but there is no future in "i".

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:18:26 -0500
Subject: Re: Future of RPG was: Open Access for RPG
From: aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx

Been following this thread with interest. I wouldn't be opposed to a
new name, but agree that the perception is more what needs to be
changed. A new name might be in order if they did some crazy
significant things with the language/syntax - like 100% free-form and
break away from ALL "legacy" features so the language can be moved
forward faster. Obviously the things on the "legacy features list"
would be debatable, but I would put on that list things like
indicators, fixed form specs, etc.

At the end of the day I don't see a lot of use in trying to convince
somebody over 50 that they should learn something new unless they have
already stated interest in moving forward - I gave up on that crew a
few years ago. INSTEAD I think we need to focus on how to convey the
platform to the next generation. A month or so ago I posted to
WEB400-L about doing a tutorial named "RPG for PHP programmers" that
would essentially train an existing PHP minded person to do
RPG+CGI+DB2+IBMi with the basics and get them producing applications
in a weeks time. Teaching a PHP programmer concepts of ILE modularity
is already within their nature, and with embedded SQL I think they
would take to it like a fish to water. Of course such training would
also declare the common "gotchas" that we have on our system that
might not be immediately apparent to a new personality.

ALL of this is moot if people can't get access to a machine. If
www.iDevCloud.com or equivalent doesn't pan out in right ways then I
would say all other efforts we work on are relatively moot. I am
hopeful that IBM will recognize the incredible opportunity they have
right now to capitalize on "IBM i in the cloud" and provide means of
providing free access to slivers of a cloud IBM i machine for people
to cut their teeth on. I am not holding my breath and instead think
it will have to happen on the backs (and the pocket books) of the
community.

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
http://mowyourlawn.com/blog/
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