Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 10:01:55 -0400 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: OT: AS/400 and RPG Message-ID: <3EC39DD3.8060507@potentialtech.com>
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Hello knowledgable community. Once again I am relegated to bugging the FreeBSD community about something that really isn't their concern because I'm unable find any other reliable source of information. I recently spoke with a potential new client who has a half-written application in RPG on an AS/400 that they would like me to complete for them. I'll add more history about the situation below, but for those who don't want to read a lot, here's my question: Is RPG still a growing, viable language? Is the AS/400 still an evolving platform? I've heard rumors that IBM is starting to abandon AS/400 for Linux, and when I searched for books on RPG, I found very few (although I found many that were out of print). Would I be doing this client a disfavor to continue development in RPG? Would I be wasting my time to learn it? I know nothing about the AS/400 or the RPG programming language. Basically, the client paid a programmer to screw them^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwrite this program 2 years ago because their research showed that there was a large market for it. The programmer wrote most of the app and then took the last bit of the money and skipped town. It's been sitting for two years with no money to complete the development. The original programmer wrote it as a terminal app. While I don't have any gripes with the terminal environment, this client is having trouble getting financial backers who see the program, becuase it looks like an old green-screen program. so they want me to replace the terminal interface with a Windows-ish GUI. How hard will that be in RPG? I suggested rewriting the app in some other language (such as perl/SQL) which they didn't disagree with, but they claim they can't get the money to do a rewrite now. Was the programmer an asshole for taking money to write a terminal app in 2000? I think so. Upshot is: they want to work out some sort of arrangement where I fix the program, and then I get a percentage of sales or something. Frankly, I've heard this all before and gotten burned on it before. (Folks think if they write a program and put up a website they'll sell 1000 copies) These folks seem to have a better understanding of how much money it takes to market a program, but I'm still not convinced that it'll be worth my while. I'm worried that the AS/400/RPG requirement will hurt sales markedly. Something written in perl/MySQL would run on BSD/Linux/ Mac/Windows and have a much larger market, right? -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com
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