Re: Is RPG dying

Still cost of ownership is less on the i. You need more staff in a SQL
Server or Oracle shop. Most i shops never had a DBA or a systems person
unless they are very huge.
I have 3 years of c# now, I recall development times as lower on the i.

Still your point about not many new i shops is probably accurate.

On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 8:49 AM, john e <whattssonn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

AS/400 (IBM i) is a proprietary system, it is designed to be run without
attendance, and is vertically scalable.

This is much different than what is needed in "the cloud". Yes you need
scalability, endless scalability, i.e. horizontal and not vertical.

If you start a cloud business, would you REALLY go for "the i"....? I mean,
all costs considered. Because you really don't want to pay for a system
which is designed to run without operator / sys-admin. I mean, if you start
a clouyd business then managing the technical infrastructure is your core
competence. You can do that much cheaper using Linux boxes.

The business case for AS/400 is not to be used as a cloud platform (EBCDIC
anybody?).

If managing the IT infrastructure is your core business you don't pay IBM
lots of cash to do it for you (i.e. lease an AS/400). You CAN make a
cluster of Linux boxes just as resilient (or even more) than an AS/400. But
it takes expertise, and work, which you don't want in a normal business
setting. There you want an AS/400. AS/400 is out-of-the-box scalability and
stability. No expertise needed.


On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 2:09 PM, Mike Cunningham <mike.cunningham@xxxxxxx

wrote:

If I had nothing today and was just starting a business (a non-software
development business) I would not choose any particular hardware or OS or
language as I would most likely just go 100% cloud and let someone else
worry about all that. If I was starting a business that was going to
provide cloud services I would definitely go with the i platform because

it

will scale so nicely but would probably choose java or EGL as the

language.

My customers won't care as they only care about the end result and I want
my developers to be as productive as possible.

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:

rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Behalf Of john e
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2012 7:31 AM
To: RPG programming on the IBM i / System i
Subject: Re: Is RPG dying

Joe said:

People get Perl jobs too. :) But to use the trite observation, if
you were building an application today would you use PHP as your first
choice? I wouldn't.

But the question was: would you choose the AS/400 (IBM i, pff) and RPG

(or

just AS/400) as your (server) development platform, if you had a choice,
i.e. all things considered equal and no AS/400 already running mega

package.

On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 1:11 PM, Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

wrote:

On 3/9/2012 1:53 AM, John Yeung wrote:

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 10:15 PM, Joe
Pluta<joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

I'll be happy to make a prediction. PHP is on a steady decline,
has been for the last several years.

You cite TIOBE, which shows PHP's trajectory as basically flat from
sometime in 2004 through 2010, with a more noticeable decline only
in the last couple of years. (Contrast with Java, which has been
declining for at least a decade, even after adjusting for the
"Google revision" in 2004.)

Yes, the decline since, say, 2010 has been dramatic. Almost as bad as
Visual Basic.

You want to be current, learn C# or Objective-C.

I think what these languages' TIOBE ratings show is that the .NET
and iPhone platforms are enjoying a lot of success right now.

I agree. I wrote about that nearly a year ago:


http://www.mcpressonline.com/programming/rpg/practical-rpg-the-future-
of-rpg.html

You want to be last year's news, learn PHP or better yet Python.
Scripting languages are sooooo 2006. :)

True. Though it sounds like Hans got his PHP job more recently than
that. At least we don't have to worry about RPG ever having been or
ever becoming a fad. :)

People get Perl jobs too. :) But to use the trite observation, if
you were building an application today would you use PHP as your first
choice? I wouldn't.

Joe
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