Re: Trial for RDi SOA -- WDSCI-L

I don't understand why there is such a strong resistance to learning a new

language. I feel that we need to adapt to a changing world. I'm not a PHP
guy, but from what I understand, it is pretty darn easy to get up and
running with it.

For the same reasons why you can get up and running fast with RPG and
developing 5250 screens. Sure you can be effective in a short amount of
time, but it is the 5 years of continual honing that really make you a solid
and efficient developer. And those 5 years also teach you the right way to
do things vs. the way you first learned to do them.

It just seems to me companies are so willing to throw 15 years worth of RPG
know-how out the door and think they can get the same level of productivity
in any other language in a short amount of time. Just think of all the
little things you've learned about
RPG/OS400/DB2/CL/Query/SQL/*DTAQ/*USRSPC/APIs/etc over the years that are
now no longer valid (in some cases).

If PHP is the way to go, so be it, but we as developers get to ensure we are
looking at our companies previous investments before moving onto something
that totally changes the landscape of technology in our dept.

I haven't seen these other tools you're talking about. Do they keep you

from needing to code javascript to get interesting things happening on the
client?

To be honest I have had used those tools very little. I am more of an open
source guy, because when something breaks I want to be able to fix it and
get my company up and running again. I would guess they do some
auto-writing of js for you, and also require some be written by you. Of
course this is the bitter sweet thing about the RPG tooling out there right
now.

Just some thoughts from somebody who has been down that road more than once
:-)
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 10:06 AM, Jim Steil <steil@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I was recently at a conference where George Farr was speaking. He was
asked this question and he said they already did. It was Visual Age for
RPG and no one bought it. I don't understand why there is such a strong
resistance to learning a new language. I feel that we need to adapt to
a changing world. I'm not a PHP guy, but from what I understand, it is
pretty darn easy to get up and running with it. I understand why
someone might not want to go the Java path, it is (for me anyway) a bit
overwhelming. I think that once you get into any kind of serious visual
web development that you're going to find that you've GOT to know
javascript, or use a tool that will generate it for you. RPG just isn't
going to be enough.

I haven't seen these other tools you're talking about. Do they keep you
from needing to code javascript to get interesting things happening on
the client?

-Jim