RE: RPGIII compiler vs. Visual Basic

[Alan Campin <Alan.Campin@xxxxxxx>]

 >Alan:
>I know darn well that Microsoft did not
>make the changes to VB.NET just because
>they felt like it. They made them because 
>they had to. They simply could not continue
>to support the old monolith model and move 
>forward. 

>> How long did the old monolith model last, and how long will the next model
>> survive?  If you got into this technology two or three years ago, do you
>> feel like a chump now?

Monolith has always been around and will always be. I call it the 10,000 
monkeys and typewriters method. Just starting typing and at some point, just 
decide you are done. You can do that in any language. No thought or engineering 
goes into the product. If you have every seen any AS/400 business packages, you 
know what I mean.  

I have been writing ILE for 10 years and sure don't feel like a chump. Still 
learning and learning, getting better and better and everything I am learning, 
I can apply to object oriented languages. 

We probably all should be writing in Java now but since Java on the AS/400 
doesn't seem to run worth a damn or takes an huge machine, we are left with RPG 
ILE. Only other option seems to be to move our business logic to Linux or 
Windows boxes in Java but then you lose the advantages of the AS/400.