We first started thinking about writing this article during an exchange of emails with a long-time RPG correspondent who had on this occasion been enlisting our help in educating his fellow developers on the joys of Rational Developer for Power (RDP). Although his company provides ongoing education for its .NET developers, there’s no formal education for the IBM i staff. So with the help of a colleague, he’d been trying to do it himself. One particular comment struck home as all too familiar:
“We have aging RPG developers who are very much stuck in a rut when it comes to entering into the modern RPG world. On the other hand, and partly because of this rut, the company is moving more in the direction of C#, .NET and other Microsoft-related tools.”
We’ve often suspected when we hear developers in IBM i shops complaining that “all the new stuff in our shop always goes to the .NET crowd” that it could be because no one in the RPG/IBM i group has ever demonstrated that the platform is capable of modern applications. This is the first time someone in a shop offered a similar explanation.
As much as we enjoy prodding people who are stuck in a rut, we had nevertheless decided not to write this article. There are after all limits to how many times one can preach to the choir, and the very fact that you’re reading this indicates a willingness on your part to at least jump up and peek out of the rut. So what changed our minds?
The ‘DOS Window’
We went to the bank over the weekend. While in the process of arranging an overseas wire transfer, the young manger who was handling the process stopped and said: “I must apologize in advance, but I have to bring up a DOS window to do this next part. It hasn’t been integrated into our modern software yet. I know it makes us look terribly old-fashioned but it is the only way I can do this.”
The “DOS window” that came up on his screen was clearly recognizable as a 5250 screen. A “DOS window!” How insulting can you get? But to this young man (he was probably in his 30s but everyone looks young to us these days), our dear old green screen was so old-fashioned and out-of-date that he felt the need to apologize for it. The fact that it was probably more than adequate for the task was irrelevant to him. Perception is everything.
Sad situation, isn’t it? Yet we suspect that some of you out there may be thinking as you read this, “My users are fine with their green screens” or “Green screens are faster for heads down data entry” or even “Green screens are good enough—they do the job and I have other things to worry about.”
Consider our young banker—an apparent high-flyer in his company. Can you imagine what he will say if he’s ever asked to give an opinion on the status of IT in his company? What if his next job involves choosing between different banking application options? Do you think he’s going to wax rhapsodic about the wonderful “DOS Window” application? Of course not—it will be No. 1 on his hit list because he felt it made him look bad in front of a customer.
It’s not just about green-screen program interfaces. We’re equally appalled by the number of shops we talk to that ship massive amounts of data off their IBM i to another “database server” platform for purposes of business intelligence. What other platform could possibly be a better database server than the one where the database is built-in? Perhaps no one ever offered to show off the modern selection of BI and data analytics tools available on today’s IBM i. Worse still, perhaps no one on the IBM i team were even aware of the possibilities.
Who’s to Blame?
In situations where IBM i isn’t providing modern applications, we often wonder who’s to blame. Is it managers who are mired in the past or who just can’t be bothered to push their staff? Or programmers who think that the tools and techniques of the 1980s are appropriate for developing today’s applications?
We touched on this subject during the conversations with our correspondent. He noted that while the company did not pay for training of the IBM i staff, they did encourage the more go-ahead team members to run lunch-and-learn sessions for their fellow developers. How did that go? We’ll let his words speak for themselves.
“We have more than 25 RPG developers. All were invited to these sessions. The maximum number of attendees we’ve ever had is 5. Of those who have attended, we’ve seen some interest from 4, but real interest and subsequent usage of RDP from only 2. It’s a bit depressing. This is a product we already own and they should be using. Moreover, if we can’t even get them to use RDP to edit a language they know, what’s going to happen when the company starts making decisions about who to keep based on who’s willing to change?”
That last point is important. Are all these developers so convinced that they can keep doing same-old, same-old until they retire? What if the economic situation gets worse and we all end up working until we’re 70? According to our correspondent, that is exactly the attitude of many of his colleagues. He continues:
“I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve overheard about whether RPG was dying or the ‘AS/400’ was going away and how they figured that even if they lost their jobs here, there would be a glut of companies that would need them ‘at least until they could retire’ and that truly is all they worry about.”
This is so sad that we’re not sure whether to scream or cry. Do these developers have so little pride in what they do that they feel comfortable in just coasting along in the hope of finding another job at a company with equally low standards?
But users don’t blame the programmers. They blame the “old-fashioned” system. A system that, in their view, takes so long to do anything that it’s faster to build a new .NET application than it is to make the changes needed to the IBM i application. There’s a lesson here that applies to many of today’s IBM i shops. Our correspondent said it so well that we’ll go with his words:
“Programming is a culture. If the programming culture doesn’t change, then it will be changed by the larger culture of the business. ... Business needs change in order to remain competitive and if the green-screeners don’t break out of the quagmire of old ideas and techniques, they will get overshadowed by the new look, feel and enthusiasm of the .NETers.”
Do you have the enthusiasm for creating great applications that will make your users more productive and the business more profitable? Many IBM i developers—including our correspondent—have that enthusiasm. It’s not just an age thing. We both qualify for AARP and we know many in our age bracket who are constantly studying new tools, techniques and technologies.
Our correspondent describes some of his colleagues this way. Does this sound familiar? Someone you work with? Or maybe even yourself?
“They are waiting for retirement ... They have forgotten how it was when we started out as tech geeks ourselves, digging into everything we could find about everything that was available—and many things that weren’t … yet! They had hope, drive, desire and hunger. At some point in time, they entered the doldrums, dust settled on the desk and they got comfortable with that. Now, instead of looking forward to the newest technological leap or cool technique/package, they yearn to sit in a rocking chair staring out the window at the children playing and reminiscing about past glories of their ‘programming days’.”
Make a Difference
So what’s the point? Some folks in IBM and groups such as iManifest are working on correcting the platform’s reputation in the industry. ISVs can help by ensuring their applications evoke feelings of modern and exciting more than tired but reliable. Reliable is good, but who says it can’t also be exciting?
It’s easy to point a finger at IBM and say, “We’re not responsible for marketing the strengths of IBM i. That’s IBM’s job.” In the larger marketplace, yes, and we wouldn’t argue with you if you said IBM could do more.
But what about in your shop? What do your users think of IBM i? Not just the ones you know well enough to have lunch with—how about the ones like the banker we talked to? When was the last time you took the initiative to do something truly innovative on your system—even if only in a “proof of concept” mode—just to show the users what you and i are capable of?
The next time someone suggests that a new application might be better implemented on a “more modern” platform or that you should transfer data to a “database server” for data analytics, why not say, “i can do that—probably faster, easier and more reliably.” And don’t just say it; believe it.
Perception is everything and your attitude matters. You can make a difference.