Re: RSE - Remote System Explorer

On 8/7/2014 12:51 AM, John Yeung wrote:

On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 12:12 AM, DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

If you DO use those new features [...]. Having to
edit/compile/edit/compile/edit/compile because your editor has no ability to
check syntax is fabulously inefficient and frustrating. It serves as a
barrier to effectively utilizing new functions and capabilities.

And yet they are trying to use them anyway.

Which is a bigger barrier to using new functions and capabilities:

(1) The editor doesn't help or hinder, and you have to repeatedly edit
and compile.

(2) The editor actively tells you your correct code is wrong. And you
STILL have to repeatedly edit and compile.

It's a pay your money and take your choice situation. When you turn it off it doesn't annoy you with complaints that code is 'wrong' only because it doesn't know about that code. Flip side now is that you don't get any help on the stuff it DOES know about. Which is worse? I can't answer that for anyone but me.

I guess my point is: Are you an all-or-nothing kind of person? Do
you think it is better that people do the best that they can with what
they have, or that they don't even try? Do you think it's better to
have a partial solution or no solution? Take small steps or no steps?

Take the small steps for sure! Try things, learn, enhance, but then use that new knowledge and benefit to help explain to the boss that the piddly price for RDi is WELL worth it.

Personally, I think it's better that people take small steps rather
than no steps. Obviously, not everyone shares this view.

Absolutely agree. If you're going to eat an elephant, you can only eat it one bite at a time.

Also please note that Buck, and pretty much anyone who has said
anything at all, is *in favor* of RDi. Including the OP. Now, maybe
the OP should try again to convince the powers that be to spend money
on better tools. But even if such an effort is successful, it's not
likely to happen overnight. In the meantime, with actual work to do,
with their existing tools, I personally think it's better to do the
best you can. I'm actually not even sure what you're proposing for
the meantime. That they stop work entirely until management comes
around? Effectively go on strike?

Not at all, you missed my point. Certainly get started, try new stuff. THEN Get the FREE DEMO. Use it hard for those two months, prove its worth, see the value!

I am going after the shops where management and staff have 'teamed up' to 'save' the price of RDi when the payback for using it would be just weeks. Better productivity better error checking, better debugging, better editing, bigger view, multiple views, etc etc.

And sadly it can be worse than JUST the editor. If everyone in the company is working on web pages and GUI things but when you step into I.T. and find nothing but 24x80 green on black people make assumptions, they think: "Oooh that's old" and they translate that to "our systems are old, we run our company on that?" Our amazing platform gets another 'dent' and I.T. takes it too.

It can also point out Staff who don't want to move forward as well. I saw one just last week. Power7+ Server. IBM i 7.1, absolute latest groups and CUMes, 100% home grown RPG, Nice new Thinkpad, Two big screens each with SEU editing sessions full screen. (sigh) "C" down the left side of both screens. Perfect column of opcodes down the middle. I asked why not RDi? (They purchased it even!) I got a litany of how free form is so hard to read and prototypes are a waste of typing and and and and. This person is checked out, working to retire now, they may not admit it yet but they are. Check out Jon and Susan's blog for a recent post about this very thing.

Note that I'm not picking on persons here, I'm picking on the attitude.

Same for me.

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper told me that if I continued to do do the same
thing the same way "because I always do it that way" she would appear next
to me and beat me about the head and shoulders with her cane. Justifiably
so.

Fine. But the folks who are trying to use the new features are
specifically NOT doing things the same way they have always done.
Otherwise they wouldn't even be asking on this list. You want to cane
them too, because they are trying to do modern things with old tools?
Are these folks more deserving of the cane than the ones who write new
RPG II code using RDi?

But they are using the same tools!

My Uncle went to the local hardware store when he was at least 75 years old to get his 25 year old chainsaw repaired. The owner (who happens to be named Larry) had to explain to him: "Bill, I'm real sorry. I just can't fix this saw any more." My Uncle argued with him but finally gave in and purchased a new Stihl. A week or so later he was in the hardware again and Larry caught him: "So Bill, how's that new saw?" His reply is classic: "Larry, I got just one issue: Why in the world didn't you sell me that saw TEN YEARS ago!?"

Look I get it. Sometimes you try stuff and that's good. Sometimes what you try fails, (see: Edison), I'm not after the guy who's trying a few things and his editor is complaining. I'm after the attitude of 'good enough' and 'we've always done it this way.' and 'oh woe is me' and 'my boss won't get me this tool'. Whatever happened to craftsmen bringing their own tools to work? In many trades today you still do!

Excuses are, well, just excuses.

DrF

John Y.