Sunset for the IBM i?

[jeffolen4]

I have been seeing a lot of press recently saying that the IBM i is on it's way out. That's it's a "legacy" system and "everyone" ought to replace it with a {insert server name here}. While this in itself is not new, the underlying problem has changed since the early 90s when I first heard people mumbling about the end of the AS400.

I know I am painting a target on myself but someone has to say this...

The problem is not with the IBM i / iSeries / AS400 machine itself. The problem is with the vast legion of developers out there still developing using 20 year old technology aka RPG.

Look folks I am the first to say that developing RPG applications has been very, very good to me. I made a comfortable living doing it for the better part of two decades. But it is SO INCREDIBLY time to move on. For those of you that are still coding exclusively in RPG, your career has a shelf life of about 3 to 5 years...if that.

There are plenty of tools out there that can be used to develop applications that run native on an IBM i and will complete head to head with any other system out there. As an example, Java will run on the IBM i. PHP runs native on the IBM i as does MySQL. Why would any IBM i developer shun these tools!

The real beauty in putting these tools to work for you is that you can still leverage your existing RPG code. PHP supports calls to any IBM i program no matter what language it was developed in.

IBM and upper management won't save the IBM i and honestly its not up to them to do it...it's up to us as developers to write the new generation of "killer apps".

[D.Abramowitz]

1.) - Applications are instigated by the corporate entities that use them, not by developers.
2.) - The tools that are used are mandated by management, not by developers.
3.) - I've been hearing about the demise of this box for about 20 years. Hasn't happenned yet.

Developers have a certain amount of input into the manner in which an application is developed, but by and large that's about it.

If you want to create the next killer app, I'm afraid you'll have to own the company.

Dave

[dacust]

Yeah, but it's a dinosaur!

It's been out since 1988.

But, wait, the PC came out in 1981. Ah, so the PC is even more of a dinosaur than the AS/400 !!!

So, by that logic, we just wait for the PC to die, and then we know we only have 7 more years on the i.

OK, so my logic is flawed, but I, too, am amused by the "IBM i is dying" crowd. It invariably comes from people that don't work on them.

We have an advantage in our perspective. I know tons more about PCs than all our Wintel guys all together know about IBM i's. That's because I use PCs daily and do programming to interface with them. They have no reason to use an i, so they have absolutely no knowledge about them. They know the PC has advanced dramatically over the years, but in their lack of exposure, they just assume the 400 has stood still.

However, what I kinda agree with jeffolen4 about is it's important for me to learn new languages. Not because I need them on the i. But because there are times it is important to code for portability. And I think there is something to be said for programming that way even if I, in my own infinite wisdom, don't think it will ever have to run on another platform.

I talk big, but I only code RPG...

-dan

[R.Daugherty]

A major load of hooey. Where to begin...

- If someone has seen any reference to system i, replacing or otherwise, other than this site and the other rag, they're looking in places I've never seen. I won't believe that until I see some links, and I won't be holding my breath for that.

- Let's assume for a minute that someone did care enough to make such a statement. Replace with what? Again, I won't be holding my breath to see a link to that answer. Remember, the statement was replacing the system i, not some nebulous language talk, which again only comes from iseries people like this one and former iseries people on the other rag. No one else could care.

- Now let's get down to nebulous language talk. I'll take anything you want to throw at me and kick the crap out of it with RPG. Performance talks, BS walks.

- I'm starting an open source RPG web app server program with a couple of new performance wrinkles to try, but in meantime I just had first release in my rdwrites ILE RPG /free Google Code open source project, a subfile program written in /free with service program subprocedures. Project at http://code.google.com/p/rdwrites/
Code downloadable from project or browseable from subversion directory at http://code.google.com/p/rdwrites/so...unk/RDWT090810

- Meanwhile, the system i has all those languages and more. If you think you can do something better in another language, do it.

rd

[efnkay]

As a development platform...Yes it's done. the former AS/400's time as a wriite it, compile it, and run it all on the same box are long gone.

It's capabilities in every other aspect of business computing so completely surpasses anything out there now, or that ever was out there, if it's not still in use today.

Ask yourself this question playing the role of the software developer with an idea for a little package that you'll create and everyone needs. Are you going to choose a text based programming language, text based editors instead of a "really nice" IDE, green-screens instead of GUI. The answers make the point. No, no, and probably not.

As to Jeff's point about the use of "old" RPG...I've cursed and ground my teeth down to marrow when I think of all the 20 to 25+ year veterans I've run into in my carreer that really had only 2-3 years experience because they were still using code and techniques learned in the first 2-3 years of their careers. What amazes me the most...!!!

That any single person (let alone the vast legions) could do the same stuff day-in and day-out without EVER learning another thing "new" in over 20 years...To me, that's brain-dead. Sometimes I believe it would be best for them to voluntarily "check-out" the Dr. Kevorkian way, and let their kin collect the SS checks. >

[R.Daugherty]

Interesting points I'd like to counter, also thanks to jeffolen4 for throwing it out there for comment to start with.

While I still prefer SEU, I also have WDSc or rdi or whatever the heck it's called this week, and I use whichever based on project. There is absolutely no call for referring to a text IDE (SEU) as you did when everyone has the Eclipse RPG IDE which is very robust. I used it last year for developing an RPG and Java mix app, instantiating Java classes and calling methods from RPG, bouncing back and forth between two views in the IDE. It should be obvious to you that we have as advanced IDE as anyone else.

Concerning new development with GUI, there's a thing called the Apache web server which seems to be used a lot out there. It's on the iseries. The Eclipse RPG IDE is geared for developing for it and other non-GUI web services. What do you think other people are doing out there fir "GUI", and why do you think they somehow have something we don't?

Now on to your and OP's grudge against RPG programmers. I can make some observations:

Non-trivial businesses have been running on RPG for decades.

Features since RPG/400 are mostly aethestics; it is arguable, and an argument I don't have the time to engage in, on the benefits of certain modularity aethestics, culminating in OO architecture. There are extremes in monolithicism and extremes in layers of modularity.

The right mix was found by RPG/400 days in callable programs. For most every architecture feature we have now we have always been able to do it pretty well, and very fast. Some things make it easier and some more obscure, but our success was based on a great OS/400 language architecture from the beginning.

When a business is running on a set of code, consistency is more important than fanbois of new things because they're excited about it. That's personal and to be expected, it's your career, but what businesses do to stay in business and keep costs down by using what works is irrelevant to what you want to do personally. If the business is happy and the programmers are happy, it's really none of your business to criticize them as in this thread. What they have works, what they do works, and unless you come up with something better, and believe me, for everything you fanbois think is better there are tradeoffs, then they'll keep using it what works until a clearly superior cost effective way of doing things is determined to be used.

And for all the talk, I haven't seen that clearly superior cost effective way fo doing things. Lots of talk about PHP for example, and non-trivial businesses are not running on that.

That's pretty telling right there.

rd

[efnkay]

Yes...A lovely the IDE is included with Websphere if you're developing software using
RPG (any flavor) and you are writing code specifcially for one platform...I'm not a
slammer of RPG coders...

I just don't ever want to see CAB (compare and branch) coding when there is, and has
been structured op codes for decades. Or somebody who wants to build a logical to
order their data for a report or display because they don't know basic SQL.

Words to the wise...Don't ever assume you won't end up on another platform. The breadth of the skill sets you've aquired and used on the AS/4-i5 will carry you through any platform and programming language your company goes to. Why? Because if it's out there...You can do it already on your i machine.

In aggreement with the original post..."Rolling stones gather no moss." Or maybe as Roberto Duran would have put it..."No mas!"

[jeffolen4]

Interesting points I'd like to counter, also thanks to jeffolen4 for throwing it out there for comment to start with.

While I still prefer SEU, I also have WDSc or rdi or whatever the heck it's called this week, and I use whichever based on project. There is absolutely no call for referring to a text IDE (SEU) as you did when everyone has the Eclipse RPG IDE which is very robust. I used it last year for developing an RPG and Java mix app, instantiating Java classes and calling methods from RPG, bouncing back and forth between two views in the IDE. It should be obvious to you that we have as advanced IDE as anyone else.

Concerning new development with GUI, there's a thing called the Apache web server which seems to be used a lot out there. It's on the iseries. The Eclipse RPG IDE is geared for developing for it and other non-GUI web services. What do you think other people are doing out there fir "GUI", and why do you think they somehow have something we don't?

Now on to your and OP's grudge against RPG programmers. I can make some observations:

Non-trivial businesses have been running on RPG for decades.

Features since RPG/400 are mostly aethestics; it is arguable, and an argument I don't have the time to engage in, on the benefits of certain modularity aethestics, culminating in OO architecture. There are extremes in monolithicism and extremes in layers of modularity.

The right mix was found by RPG/400 days in callable programs. For most every architecture feature we have now we have always been able to do it pretty well, and very fast. Some things make it easier and some more obscure, but our success was based on a great OS/400 language architecture from the beginning.

When a business is running on a set of code, consistency is more important than fanbois of new things because they're excited about it. That's personal and to be expected, it's your career, but what businesses do to stay in business and keep costs down by using what works is irrelevant to what you want to do personally. If the business is happy and the programmers are happy, it's really none of your business to criticize them as in this thread. What they have works, what they do works, and unless you come up with something better, and believe me, for everything you fanbois think is better there are tradeoffs, then they'll keep using it what works until a clearly superior cost effective way of doing things is determined to be used.

And for all the talk, I haven't seen that clearly superior cost effective way fo doing things. Lots of talk about PHP for example, and non-trivial businesses are not running on that.

That's pretty telling right there.

rd

I suppose that it could be true that no non-trivial businesses are running PHP...if you consider Yahoo.com, Facebook, and Fed-ex "trivial" businesses. All of them are running PHP.

Businesses of all sorts will continue to run on the iSeries/IBM i but they won't be developing any new applications in RPG. They'll be running AIX and Java or PHP. The platform is safe...the developers who want to do something other than maintenance programming will need to learn a new skill set. Start planning for that day now.

Jeff

[R.Daugherty]

I knew you'd say that, it's pretty old. Those non-trivial businesses you mention run on massive fine tuned C/C++ architectures the same as we run our businesses on RPG architectures. Having some fluff PHP served isn't running the business on it, so my statement still stands and you'll have searching to do to find a non-trivial business that runs on PHP as our business run on RPG.

You won't find it, but good hunting.

rd

[OzzieH]

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