Re: Is RPG dying

<quote>
It seems, for reading all the notes on this subject, that it is wounded
but still alive and around. I just wonder about COBOL...I do not really
hear much about it anymore.
Only two programmers? That was a small shop.

But, anyway, what would have been the best thing for a RPG and CL AS400
programmer to do back in 2000? Would retraining have been a good idea?
How about now? I was hoping that somebody would answer my questions.


Thank you,
Nancy
</quote>

Nancy,

- COBOL is playing the same role in the mainframe sector as RPG in the AS/400 sector, it's a slowly shrinking nishe, keeping alive with maintaining old software and very few projects to develop new applications.

- 2000 has gone more than 10 years and you can't reload your life, so the best for you is: your own decision in the year 2000 was the best choice for you from the perspective of the year 2000.

- What to do now? This depends on your actual job situation, your personal situation, your preferences and your interests. Learning new things can't be wrong at any time and having a look to mainstream technologies opens up your eyes for things happening outside your little world., especeally when you are living and working in a slightly shrinking niche. Most important is how problems are analyzed and solved, not the programming languages. The short history of Java in the AS/400 community is an impressive example, that trying to write RPG programms in Java did not work. Developping software is design driven and if someone doesn't understand the diffrence between the RPG cycle and event driven software, he should stay at programming RPG, because he is thinking in RPG.

Dieter