Re: Iseries Education and marketing

[Jerry Adams <jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rob is right.  Every RPG programmer with whom I have worked has been 
trained on the job, and I trained most of them.  Learning the basics of 
RPG is pretty easy, which is one of its strong points. 


Plus a company, even a small one, that looks to the future will pro 
actively work with their community college or other.  Back in the 80's 
big iron and COBOL were still the rage, but I was able to work out an 
informal arrangement with a professor at New Mexico State to train RPG 
programmers on a /34.  NMSU had no RPG classes then and I doubt that 
they do now, but the students picked up on it pretty quickly.


At COMMON I notice that a lot of friends I've made over the years there 
are certainly getting older and, in some cases, grayer (moi included), 
but there are new, young faces turning up every conference, too.  Some 
would, I guess, rather be doing glitzy web stuff, but that bubble got 
deflated awhile back, too.


The programming population was only less gray when we graybeards started 
because it was a new profession.  But the guy who trained me was a 
little gray. 


It's sorta like airplane pilots: Would you rather be on a flight with a 
pilot gray around the temples (or even on top), or a kid that learned to 
fly a Cessna last week?  Combat experience, in my opinion, would be a plus.


        * Jerry C. Adams
*iSeries Programmer/Analyst
B&W Wholesale Distributors, Inc.* *
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        615.893.8633x152
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        615.995.1201
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        jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>



rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> OJT is primarily how the training is done.  Now, when I started, the 
> community college had a S/34 with all the terminal time you wanted - not 
> bad compared to the university with it's reliance on punched cards.  We've 
> used ATS training courses and other tools to bring a new person up to 
> speed.
>
> Nowadays, with all the experienced talent floating around looking for 
> work, why train a newbie in RPG?
>
> Rob Berendt
>