Ask Not What You Can Do for RPG but What RPG Can Do for You!

[David Abramowitz]

Ask Not What You Can Do for RPG but What RPG Can Do for You!

** This thread discusses the article: Ask Not What You Can Do for RPG but What RPG Can Do for You! **
I don't see the conflict. One should be able to move between different types of systems without having a label. Depending upon the shop, and the application, there is a time and a place for techniques of all sorts. I will agree that there are those who refuse to learn any new techniques whatsoever. The other side of that coin is that there are those who insist on using new techniques that are inappropriate for the circumstances simply because they are new! Dave

[R.Daugherty]

Ask Not What You Can Do for RPG but What RPG Can Do for You!

** This thread discusses the article: Ask Not What You Can Do for RPG but What RPG Can Do for You! **
When in Rome... If you're working on RPG II code with indicators, then you use RPG II code with indicators. I haven't much in my career but I code in the style of the system. I think I've posted before that in an interview at a very large advanced financials company when I was looking for work about three years ago, they showed me a critical RPG II program with level logic and asked me if I understood it. I told them that I had only written one small program in RPG II when I was thrown onto a Sys/38 one Saturday to help out. They picked somebody more enthusiastic about it to work on that code. Still, if I get handed code, I (and you, as you say) can deal with different syntax and architecture. Will the RPG II programmer be able to deal with RPG IV? I am quite sure he will be very busy even if the system is replaced in the next six years in supporting the transition, so for him probably doesn't matter as much. rd P.S. I see my post landed in between Tom's post and Dave's response.

[Guest.Visitor]

Ask Not What You Can Do for RPG but What RPG Can Do for You!

** This thread discusses the article: Ask Not What You Can Do for RPG but What RPG Can Do for You! **
I remember my time in Lincare, a Florida based company. My supervisor Kathleen Reichard was 61 years old (two years older than your colleague). When she took charge, she got all legacy code rewritten in RPGIV using templates written by Carson Soul and modified by her. I wont tell you how old I am but can tell you that I have been programming since the 70s. I have programmed in Cobol, Plan, Assembler, Fortran, RPGII, Basic, dBase, Foxpro, C, C++, Java, JCL, CL, T-Sequel, ... and now rolling my sleeves for C# My legacy collegue is much much younger than me. The moral of the story is that Legacy mentality has nothing to do with age, it is a mental state Love ya.

[Guest.Visitor]

Ask Not What You Can Do for RPG but What RPG Can Do for You!

** This thread discusses the article: Ask Not What You Can Do for RPG but What RPG Can Do for You! **

The other side of that coin is that there are those who insist on using new techniques that are inappropriate for the circumstances simply because they are new!

I know the feeling. It is quite common among microsoft platform guys to jump to the newest windows and newest version of VB. However it is not so common among AS/400 guys. It is my AS/400 mentaltiy that kept me away from .net and SQL server until now. Until now it was plain VB and Access. However certain techniques are not new. /free has been with us for six years, ILE for over ten years and people resist to even embedded SQL which had been there since day one i.e. some twenty years. Now that we have a big chunk of T-Sequel/C# project, my AS/400 colleague is having difficulties getting used to this technology. Well if he had been embedding SQL for past twenty years, T-Sequel would have been just another adjustment, not a new world. If he had been using RPGIV, ILE and /free for the past six years with subprocedures, C# (an off spin of Java and C++) would have been an adjustment as well. In these days of corporate takeovers and mergers, if we need stability in our life, we need to diversify our skills or we will be gone.