All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

[MCWebsite.Staff]

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[gdavis@gmdsolutions.com]

** This thread discusses the article: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go **
Our company is also frustrated. We are an Advanced Business Partner and a RPG Shop. We offer a lot of education to our employees, but the biggest problem we have is not just finding good RPG programmers, but finding good programmers period. Unlike others we are looking for good programmers with about 2-3 years experience that we can train, but if they have worked in the corporate world, they have been pre-trained to program at the lowest possible speed. When we bring them in the other programmers carry them for a bit, but after a while get tired of it and leave them isolated.

[belgorodskym]

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Is it possible that the low speed is caused by harsh punishment for mistakes? I've experienced that phenomenon. BTW, I am a good RPG and Java programmer, with 15+ of experience, and would be very happy to work on an AS/400 project. Oracle annoys me every day. Mike 301-907-8134

[David Abramowitz]

** This thread discusses the article: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go **
You may have an issue with the 2-3 year bit. Most midrange programmers in the shops and user groups in my area have a minimum of ten years of rock solid programming. Many will double as system designers, triple as operators, and quadrouple as business analysts. These are individuals who have weathered many IT battles and bear the scars thereof. Consequently, they will want the compensation worthy of their efforts. Eliminate the experience part of your advertising. You should receive better paper from better candidates. It should become apparant in an interview if an individual cannot cut the mustard. Dave

[JohndeCoville]

** This thread discusses the article: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go **
What Jean is asking for, an old wound, is that the i5/OS have COMPLETENESS. Lacking a native GUI, a native WEB Interface and the perception that WDSc 7.0 is still incomplete is key to the cessation of new development in the System-i world. My impression is that IBM has a short-attention-span and wonders off leaving behind a poor "Fit and Finish" on its products. Many products such as WDSc 7.0 have many excellent features but get killed with the continuing slow download time for new source members. Perception is 80% of reality and managers who make purchasing decisions have noted. Also noting this condition are information technology students who quickly notice that the illusion of a GUI is supplied by Eclipse or some other product running on a front-end PC. The balkiness of many features look, well, "dorky", while Microsoft's huge investment in its IDE looks, well, "cool". IBM, please eliminate the loose-ends! 1. Supply integrated native Web Support. 2. Finish and I mean really finish WDSc 7.0! Get feedback! 3. Work on other products in place such as DB2! DB2 is at best balky and not really integrated into the fabric of i5xx. 4. Work on Client Access, which still according to IBM's own Data-Base group, has not had appreciable performance improvements! Just note: DTSx packages on MS SQL server 2005 are up to 600% faster than those on SQL Server 2000. 5. Magazine publishers, stop refusing to post comments that are critical to IBM! Let all comments in that conform to the guidelines: Non-abusive, no vulgarity or unprofessional language and no flaming. All others are in. Let your forums, responses to editorials be representative of the opinions out there - yes! That includes the skeptics! Thank you Jean André for having the courage to ask for Web Services integration! --John

[dford@pmi.delta.org]

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Hi Bob, I agree that it's an extremely lame excuse to say "we can't offer a class without a 2-year lead time". I've discussed that very issue with them, but my concerns seem to fall on deaf ears. More accurately, everyone there agrees with me, but nobody believes anything can be done about it. So, they concede defeat without ever trying to change it. Several years ago, they attempted a "VisualAge for RPG" course. (I even bought the book and signed up for it!) But, because of low enrollment, they had to cancel the class. Same with the "advanced RPG" course, I believe. I also agree with you WHOLEHEARTEDLY that they need to do a MUCH better job of publicizing their classes. (all of them ... not just the iSeries ones!) In the advisory board meetings, we've tried to convince them to use new ideas for advertising, but (with a couple exceptions) it falls one the same deaf ears. (Sometimes, I think they're consciously TRYING to shoot themselves in the foot.) -- DaveSlash

[dford@pmi.delta.org]

** This thread discusses the article: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go **

You are probably a 3 to 5'er if you: a. ... f. Drink coffee in the afternoon.

Hey! I drink coffee in the afternoon! :-) (I'm working on my first cup of the day right now ... at 3:15pm). After a big lunch (and not enough sleep last night), it's the only thing that keeps me going. -- DaveSlash

[OzzieH]

** This thread discusses the article: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go **
The sad truth, that is, a possible truth, is that the platform is already dead---these things just take a while to go room temperature. There's just no way that a company like IBM can tolerate a zero-growth division long term. It just can't.