It seems the people who most oppose the change from RPG III to free-format ILE RPG are former programmers who have been "promoted" into roles where they are no longer coders. They still want to read the code, but are unwilling to make the investment of time to learn a new syntax. I hear comments that like "What is this cr@p?". This downward exerted pressure (i.e. oppression) is definately going to encourage fence climbing. <p>Oh and by the way, instigators "bad", initiators "good". <p>Stephen West <BR>
Omaha, Nebraska

Point taken (instigators). <p>In my personal experience I think it's more a personalities thing. I've been in programmer and manager rols and the desire to learn and adopt new technologies has never changed. I've met programmers, on the other hand, who have resisted even moving from RPG III to ILE. I think it's all based on a true desire to learn and adapt.

Everything is relative I suppose. My skill level is far away from where I want to be (primarily web development). <p>However, I cannot believe there are programmers that are opposed moving to ILE from RPG III. How is that possible? Even if one doesn't want to use ILE concepts, surely they could see the benefits of coding in RPG 4 AT LEAST, couldn't they?!

For example, when I started at my current place of employment back in 1996, 5250 terminals where still being used quite a bit but people were getting new PC's (running Windows 95) and getting their terminals taken away (most of these people already had a PC so this resulted in more free cube space). One of the developers here literally had to have his terminal pried away from him. <p>The place I worked at previously was one of those shops that had standards firmly set in stone. The standard was if the department director didn't understand it and/or had already made up her mind about how to do something, that was how it was done. There was very little opportunity to try new things there.

<blockquote><i>"However, I cannot believe there are programmers that are opposed moving to ILE from RPG III. How is that possible? Even if one doesn't want to use ILE concepts, surely they could see the benefits of coding in RPG 4 AT LEAST, couldn't they?!"</i></blockquote> <p>Wow wow wow. That is the height of denial :) You probably are one of those guys who think that AS/400 is dying due to a conspiracy by people from Mars, or a more rational explaination that it is an IBM conspiracy and the proof is that they are not producing "quality" GUI like Microsoft. <p>You probably live in a pefect shop and dont know there are shops out there that actually program in RPGII using AS/400 in S/36 mode. These "Legacy Shops" are headed by "Legacy Managers" who won't feel the need of any change until there is a corporate takeover and the new Geek-o-Manager will kick his butt (and sadly that of AS/400) out. <p>But wait, there is more. There are "Legacy Evangelist" who goes board to board and preach Legacy. Observe some of these boards here on MC Forums and iSeries Network Forums. You can spot them. They let the hell loose on hearing the word "Modernization".

Hassan wrote: <i>There are "Legacy Evangelist" who goes board to board and preach Legacy.</i> <p> That would be me. No sense in tarring anyone else with my brush. <p> I preach ILE, 5250, native IO, and professionally designed web pages appropriate to a consumer or business partner audience, with at least as much form separation from business logic as we have with RPG and DDS. <p> You preach web pages and SQL. OS and language doesn't matter, that's lowest common denominator stuff. <p> Ironically, the SQL is also supposed to be lowest common denominator, but in truth any non-trivial SQL is inextricably exclusive to one database. <p> I give solid technical reasons for what I evangalize. All I see from web-SQL people are reasons that have nothing to do with what the business paying for it wants, unless they want it, but more to do with personal ambitions. <p> In any event, if the business wants web pages, we'll do it. If they want 5250, we'll do it. If they want a cheaper computer, then that's their problem. <p> Whatever they choose, they'll get what they pay for. <p> rd

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