OT: AS/400 and RPG

[Paul Robinson]

On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 10:01:55AM -0400, Bill Moran wrote:

> Hello knowledgable community.

This is -chat. Knowledge has no place here. :-)
 
> Once again I am relegated to bugging the FreeBSD community about something
> that really isn't their concern because I'm unable find any other reliable
> source of information.

If there is one thing that will get my ears pricked, it's the name "AS/400".
 
> Is RPG still a growing, viable language?  

It's viable. I wouldn't really call it "growing" because the shift is now
towards Java, but I don't know what you mean by that really. These days, on
the newer kit *everything* is Java orientated and Websphere reportedly runs
nicely on it. I considered it for a deployment here for a little while
simply because it's a secure and stable platform. Not cost effective for
what we were doing though.

I learnt RPG once and developed code on live systems. It's on my CV. Nobody
has ever asked me to write RPG code since.

> Is the AS/400 still an evolving platform?  

Kind of. They don't call it AS/400 anymore because it's not AS/400 hardware.  
It's all PowerPC-based "AS/400e" kit which they renamed last year to
"iSeries" kit. You need to clarify - do they have a proper old-school AS/400
or something more modern? Give me numbers from the front of the case, I can
tell you what's inside it quite quickly, and what it's capable of.

> I've heard rumors that IBM is starting to abandon AS/400 for Linux, 

Who from? I doubt it. Linux (and FreeBSD for that matter) doesn't have the 
big business credibility and scalability that IBM can offer with what they 
used to call their "minicomputer" market. You can run Linux on the newer kit 
if you want, but you're better off with OS/400 and then running Linux 
virtual machines to be honest... OS/400 and Linux are not comparable. It's 
like comparing an E12000 with a Fujitsu Vector processor machine... they're 
both good at what they do, but try and get each one to do the other's job, 
and things start to go the way of the pear...

> books on RPG, I found very few (although I found many that were out of
> print).  Would I be doing this client a disfavor to continue development
> in RPG?  Would I be wasting my time to learn it?

Difficult. If you want to contact me off list with more details about their
setup and the application itself, I'd be better placed to advise. My gut
instinct is that if they're running older kit, they should take the
oppurtunity now to move to a more modern architecture, but if they're in the
business of AS/400 software, they need to think about their strategy
carefully. If it's top-end (room sized) early-90s kit, OS/400 V3 or
thereabouts, you can give them a P4 that is as powerful and doesn't eat as
much electric. As to whether that's the best option....
 
> see the program, becuase it looks like an old green-screen program.  so
> they want me to replace the terminal interface with a Windows-ish GUI.
> How hard will that be in RPG?  I suggested rewriting the app in some other
> language (such as perl/SQL) which they didn't disagree with, but they claim
> they can't get the money to do a rewrite now.

One option is to take a look at http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xml4rpg

If it's an iSeries-spec box, this is straightforward with WebSphere. If it's 
an older AS/400, it's possible, but not... well... it's been done before, 
lots of sites do it, but I wouldn't really recommend it.

If you're not sure, I'd recomend you either go and do a LOT of reading up at
www.as400.ibm.com and every other AS/400 site you can find, or you pass on
this contract and hand over to somebody with experience. What you're
attempting isn't for beginners, IMHO.

> Was the programmer an asshole for taking money to write a terminal app in
> 2000?  I think so.

No. He was an asshole for not finishing the job and getting out of town. 
There is plenty of markets for terminal apps. 
 
> Upshot is: they want to work out some sort of arrangement where I fix
> the program, and then I get a percentage of sales or something.  Frankly,
> I've heard this all before and gotten burned on it before.  (Folks think
> if they write a program and put up a website they'll sell 1000 copies)
> These folks seem to have a better understanding of how much money it
> takes to market a program, but I'm still not convinced that it'll be
> worth my while.  I'm worried that the AS/400/RPG requirement will hurt
> sales markedly.  Something written in perl/MySQL would run on BSD/Linux/
> Mac/Windows and have a much larger market, right?

No. A business sees no value in software that runs in perl/MySQL so won't
pay for it. The market they are going for doesn't think perl/MySQL software
is "proper" software. In many ways, I agree. If I was in their shoes, I
wouldn't want my stock inventory system for a multinational to be running in
Perl and MySQL. Not yet, anyway. They will pay for something that runs on
top of WebSphere on the AS/400 they have running the inventory systems on
another coast, but not for some scripts running on a PC in the room next 
door.

Get in touch off-list if you want - I'm sure others will have things to say 
here on -chat - but I'm prepared to give you a more balanced answer with 
some more answers as to what's going on over there. I'll give you as much 
help as you need to guide the customer through their decision, but it's not 
easy to answer with the info you've given so far.

-- 
Paul Robinson