RE: CODE/400 -- MIDRANGE-L

>This topic has been pretty funny actually.  It would seem that most of you 
>would like to use 
>CODE/400 but you all want someone else to pay for it.  That's possibly 
>understandable for the 
>permanent employees but rather ridiculous for the "consultants".

Funny wasn't the word I was thinking of.  Here in the Rust Belt, it's like 
pulling teeth
to get the company to spend a dollar on something we don't absolutely need to 
have.
This is true of 4 companies that I worked for, all here in Upstate New York 
(Albany area:
250 km or so north of NY City.)

>I liked the analogy of a mechanics tools.  Most mechanics, plumbers, 
>carpenters, etc have to 
>provide a certain number of their own tools.  It's an expected part of the 
>job.  The boss may 
>pay for the heavy (or capital) equipment and consumables but the workers 
>provide the hammers, 
>saws, drills, socket set, wrenches, etc.

My first employer refused to spend that dollar for a PC based editor, so when 
Flex/Edit
came out, I bought a copy for myself.  We had 3 AS/400's and a S/36.  It was a 
hassle
doing work on the "remote" 400's because I had to SNADS the source to my local 
400
before Flex could use PC Support to bring it to my PC.  Once I had it on my PC, 
I had
to use SEU on the remote 400 to put a note in the source that I was working on 
it, so
that no other programmer would tinker it while I had it on my PC.  I only used 
Flex/Edit
for major development, because when it came time to test/debug, I had to keep 
the source
on the remote machine because it would not compile on the local one.  

Despite these conditions, I used it until I changed jobs.  I used it because I 
tend to
write fairly modular code, and Flex/Edit offered me the ability to work in 
"outline"
mode: expand the subroutine you're working on, while viewing a compact version
showing me the references.  Having an on-line field usage was extremely valuable
as was undo/redo.  By far, the best feature, the one that made me shell out my 
own
money was the search/replace capability.  Being able to grep my current 
project's
program/file/display file members and replace field names, find subroutines, 
etc.
was a godsend.  That allowed me to "go back" and clean up older code with the
confidence that I hadn't missed something through manual scan/replace cycles.

Why did I stop using it?  When I changed jobs, I went to work for a firm where 
there are 60+ remote AS/400's.  All the source code is out there; none of it 
here.
The mechanical issues of fetching, "pseudo-locking" and replacing the source
are too error prone.  Some of these clients are connected via TCP/IP, some are
dial-up.  No PC editor deals well with that environment.  Because I changed
jobs, I have not kept up with the upgrades; I recently downloaded a demo copy
from the web; it's still as good as I remember it being.

>Why should we be so different?  It is reasonable to expect a client have ADTS 
>installed if 
>they are intending to hire programmers, that they should provide you with a 
>desk from which to 
>work, and that they provide a means of connecting to the AS/400.  However if 
>you want to use 
>different tools you should provide them.  Permanent employees could reasonably 
>expect a PC to 
>be provided but consultants should provide their own laptop.  Consultants can 
>purchase 
>software as a business expense more easily than permanent employees but even 
>they could be 
>expected to provide some of their tools.  They can probably make it tax 
>deductable also.  The 
>advantage is you get to use the tools you like.

This is OK as long as the tool vendor doesn't require a license for each of the 
60+ 
AS/400's you need to work on.  A PC based editor works pretty well in this 
circumstance,
because the license is for the PC, not the 400.

Buck Calabro

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