Re: the RPG problem - adrift in the PC-web wind

On 3/15/2012 3:48 AM, Nathan Andelin wrote:

I've read that about 10 seconds after a Walmart cashier scans a
product at the check-out counter anywhere in the world, the
manufacturer or supplier of that purchase receives a notification of
it. And that kind of communication leads to hundreds of millions of
dollars in savings throughout the supply chain.

We sure don't get any such notification when our products are sold at Walmart??!

The real future for the IBM i platform will be determined on how well
WE adapt to the Internet. Note that I say WE, rather than IBM. IBM is
doing a pretty good job on their part. WE are not. WE resist change.
WE fail to invest meaningfully. We're suffering from a false sense of
entitlement.

I wholeheartedly agree with the part about resisting change, and I also wholeheartedly agree that this is the biggest problem with both RPG and this platform.

But, I think "adapt to the Internet" is only one issue, and ot might not even be the most important one. To me, it's three things:

1) Modern, proper, database design. Most RPGers still haven't come to grips with the fact that databases can be used other ways besides native I/O. A proper database will be designed in a way that's elegant to query, and has proper constraints and RI in place.

2) Writing code in a modular, stateless, service-oriented, fashion. Far too many programmers are still writing code in a monolithic fashion, making it hard to reuse, repurpose, and greatly increasing the time it takes to read, test or troubleshoot.

3) Use a modern UI, and be flexible about it. Even in 2012, people still think 'RPG=5250', as if they are the same thing. New code is still being written where there's an EXFMT in the middle of business logic. 5250 is 1960's technology, and makes us look archaic. You should be ready and able to output your reports to HTML, Excel, XML, or JSON. And when a new technology comes along, you should be able to adapt to that without rewriting the whole program from the ground-up. Interactive screens should be in browsers today (even if they're not on the Internet.) And I should be able to use a new display technology without rewriting your code.

But, I've said all of this a million times.