System iNetwork

March 18, 2007

Stupid RPG tricks and sourdough programming starter

Remember learning to program before the Internet? How did we do it? How did we learning anything? Back in the good ol' days, programming tricks and techniques were passed around from one programmer to another like sourdough starter was passed from gold prospector to gold prospector in the 1800s.

Early on for me, in the middle of a cornfield in Indiana learning RPG back in the late 70's and early 80's, I learned first not from magazines or COMMON, but rather from a few local programmers. I remember having lunch one day with a programmer friend of mine. We had hired the company he worked for to help us out and he was the guy assigned to our account. Long story short, he and his company weren't much help. But he did teach me a thing or two.

For a couple of years, before I learned that there were actually midrange programming educational resources avaiable, he and his crappy code were my main source of programming sourdough starter. I recall the thrill I got when I learned from reading his code how to set the value of sequential indicators with a single line of code. A single line of code! Remember this oldie-but-goodie:

'0010100' MOVEA *IN,55

Geeze, Louise. I thought the guy was a genius. I used the technique everywhere. Of course, the technique moved my already near-awful code a few squares closer to pure awful. But, hey, at least I was making it awful with very few lines of code!

The other nearly famous RPG trick I learned from reading my buddy's code was the infamous 10000.01 date multiplication trick. Of course, the trick wasn't commented and there weren't any meaningful field names used; it wasn't until about the 100th viewing that it dawned on me what was happening. With just one line of code, and no data structures or other nonsense, you could easily convert a MMDDYY numeric date into YYMMDD. Again, genius! It would be several years, and require another programming platform and language before the date data type light came on for me. But until it did, I thought 10000.01 was date manipulation nirvana.

How about you? What's your favorite stupid RPG trick? And who provided your programming sourdough starter?

rp

Posted by rpence on March 18, 2007 at 11:03 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

February 6, 2007

We'll do that if Windows becomes popular

I was going to discuss WSU and learning RPG this week. But, something rather timely has derailed my well-planned (yuk-yuk) editorial schedule. We'll get back to WSU and RPG very soon. The timely issue reminds me of something I heard in IBM's Toronto language lab office, and, to this day, is still echoed, if not in exact words, in actions by both Toronto and Rochester. We'll get to that in a moment, but first the timely issue that made me think of this.

Check out Wal-Mart's new online video download service. Check it first with Internet Explorer. Looks great. Check it next with FireFox (if you don't have FireFox, you're crazy! It is vastly superior to IE.) Amazingly, the Wal-Mark site doesn't render at all with FireFox. It simply shows a curt message that says "Unsupported browser." (Early last week it didn't even do that--FireFox users simply saw a hodge-podge of unorderly HTML.) Depending on the survey you believe, FireFox commands anywhere from 11% to 31% of the browser marketplace. And certainly a much higher percentage of those with the technical savyy and confidence to purchase full-length videos online.

It's amazing to me that the almighty Wal-Mart would thumb its nose so directly at FireFox, even for the beta version of its video downloads site. Certainly FireFox isn't a market leader, but it clearly has enough of a user base to matter. None of us would build IE-specific Internet-based apps. In the enterprise, with its business partners and vendors, and even for IT technologies (trying to get your arms around EDI, do what Wal-Mart does), whatever Wal-Mart says goes. Could it be that Wal-Mart thinks it holds such sway with consumers as well? I don't think so.This will be fixed quickly. It's almost as though Wal-Mart sat back and said, "We'll support FireFox when FireFox is popular."

Trying to use FireFox with Wal-Mark's video site reminded of Rochester and Toronto. Back in 95, I went to Toronto to see how progress was coming with IBM's VisualAge for RPG. This was back during IBM's very staunch OS/2 commitment period. You remember those days, back when virtually no one was using OS/2 but IBM. This was during the time that MS was rolling WIndows 95 out and Bill Gate's personal fortune was skyrocketing--he first topped Forbes list of richest Americans two years prior (in 1993). By this time, virtually every desktop in the world was using Windows.

I asked the VisualAge for RPG team when the product would support Windows. With a straight face, they looked at me and said, "We'll do that if Windows becomes popular." Great googly moogly! What were these boneheads thinking?

Toronto and Rochester's persistent head-in-the-sand attitude about Windows pervades many issues with the iSeries (many of which we'll dig into in the coming months) that exist yet today. I wonder what the future would have held had IBM (Rochester and Toronto specifically) used just a little more foresight and embraced iSeries-Windows interoperability with more than a token effort.

As an interesting footnote, 12 years later, MS has more than twice the market value of IBM and makes nearly twice what IBM makes.

So, listen up Wal-Mart, learn from IBM's mistakes. Get your head out of the sand. Embrace interoperability.

rp

8 March update: Eagle-eye Pat Landrum noticed today that Wal-Mart's video site is now FireFox friendly. I don't think it got fixed because the WalMart suits read this entry! But, just in case they did, here's a few other suggestions: clean up those aisles, quit stomping little guys out of business, and fer-cryin out loud. get rid of those damned happy faces. Sorry for the lack of entries lately--been traveling but back on the keyboard soon.

Posted by rpence on February 6, 2007 at 8:25 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

January 26, 2007

Guns, girls, and cussing. And computers.

I was born into the retail lumber business. My family had been in the business for nearly 30 years when I was born. I started working in the lumber yard when I was in the 4th grade (a stunning image of which accompanies this blog). Over the years I did many things at the lumber yard, although most of my earlier years were spent learning about guns, girls, and cussing from one of my earliest mentors, the lumber yard's shop foreman (there was an interesting collection of female "documentation" in his shop).

In the late 70s, the lumber yard got its first computer (using the word loosely). It was an Olivetti posting machine with a mechanical ledger card feeder that had a dual 8" diskette drive attached. It looked like the Farfisa organ that Susan Dey played in the Partridge Family. The Olivetti machine used a weird assembler dialect and, after many late nights and the mentoring skills of a local guy named John York, I learned how to program it. I was quickly hooked.

After a year of so with the Olivetti the lumber yard and I each learned one thing: The lumber yard learned it needed a real computer. We needed more business information than an Italian posting machine and Wilson-Jones 13 column spreadsheets could provide. I learned that I needed to move my career in a computer direction. Selling plywood was boring before computers; after computers it was intolerable.

In 1979 the lumber yard graduated to an IBM S/34. We bought what we thought was a good software package. I didn't know much about software, but it seemed a little lame to me that none of the data entry was validated interactively. Rather, "proof" reports had to be run iteratively until, after corrections, the numbers finally balanced. Our "package" turned out to be nothing but a bunch of DFUs strung together with a couple of menus.

It quickly dawned on me that we had a capable computer and really bad software. I rolled up my sleeves and started digging into RPG. I didn't know anything about what I was doing but it was my good luck to have a really good Systems Engineer (Dave Heminger from Fort Wayne) assigned to our account. Back in those days, a salesperson and a Systems Engineer were assigned to IBM accounts. These guys came by nearly every couple of weeks or so to buy lunch (has anyone had IBM buy lunch in the last 20 years!) and answer questions. Dave was patient and always took the time to answer my questions. I'd work for a couple of weeks and keep track of everything I needed to ask him the next time I'd see him. I vividly remember how hard he had to work to make me understand the difference between the enter key and the field exit key. I'm not a rocket scientist now, but I must have been dumber than a sack of hammers back then!

It's no wonder that IBM had financial issues and needed Lou to clean house. Those IBMers spent a lot of time at the lumber yard and didn't make IBM much money doing it. It's understandable that IBM had to change its sales model, but it's a shame that Lou wasn't able to craft a plan somewhere between the nearly full-time hand-holding we got back in those days and the nearly laughable telesales support that's offered today.

I'm nearly certain that the current state of IBM's sales force is why the AS/400 has morphed into the i5. They've never been able to even spell "AS/400," let alone sell it or explain it. "iSeries" came no easier. I think an IBM bean counter threw up her arms in frustration and said, "Screw it! Let's name it 'i5' and see if they can spell that!" Ten bucks says that initiative doesn't work and when you say "i5," the crack IBM telephone salespeople today think you're saying "I 5." As in ask my two-year-old daughter how old she is and she says, "I 2."

I'm grateful to both John York and Dave Heminger. Without their help, I'd probably be selling plywood at Home Depot today, live in a double-wide down by the river, and have a serious drinking problem.

What's your story? Where did you get your start? What, and who, put you on the path to IBM S/3x midrange machines (and their follow-ons)?

rp

Coming soon: The glory of WSU.

Posted by rpence on January 26, 2007 at 11:47 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack (0)

January 24, 2007

Has it really been that long?

25 years isn't really all that long in the grand scheme of things. There are pyramids that are more than 4000 years old for cryin' out loud! However, considering that the lifecycle for most things computer-related is often less than that of a mayfly, 25 years is a really long time. Over the course of the last 25 years, many of us have spent nearly all that time watching, using, buying, cussing, programming, praising, learning, castigating, selling, and upgrading IBM midrange computers.

Even though the last 25 years are only about .6% of the life of an old pyramid, for many of us those 25 years represent a substantial portion of our computing careers. During that time we've used S/34s and S/36s; computers that were the entry point into computing for many of us. We've used S/38s and AS/400s; computers that propelled many of us into the world of "serious" computing. We've watched the AS/400 morph from a proprietary, almost specialized, platform into an open, powerful machine. And we've seen it go through more name changes than Puff Daddy (or is just Diddy now?).

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of System iNetwork, I'll blog here about life and memories over the past 25 years in the midrange community. In the course of those 25 years, I'm proud to say I've been there in the thick and thin of much of it. I've coded a lot of RPG in that time, written many articles, given many seminars, and worked with and for many IBM midrange shops for a variety of projects. Over the course of the next six months or so, I'll blog about what the last 25 years have meant to our community, our history, our story, our life, and our careers. And so we don't sound like a bunch of reminiscing-only, "those were the good-ol' days" types, we'll occasionally try to apply lessons from the past to help us do a better job today.

We'll discuss topics that include RPG, IBM, OCL, CL, where we got our start, where we're headed, our most pathological RPG coding techniques over the years, things IBM's done right, things IBM's done wrong, Shelly Cashman (ring a bell?), SOM/DSOM, whatever happened to...(am I the only one who remembers Dave the Traveling programmer?), Carson Soule's Revenge of the Indicators, "word processors" for the S/34, folding coding templates, COMMON (and favorite--with names redacted!--CUDS stories), Windows, Netware, MRT programs, OS/2, Taligent and Pink, AD Cycle, Indicator L0, IBM 5150 terminals, and whatever other esoteric memories we can dig up.

The floor is open and short of you calling my mother ugly, your comments will be posted. So please participate. This blog isn't about me blathering about what I remember; it's about us (blathering about what we remember!).

Later this week, the first post (posted in a few days) will be about getting our feet wet with the IBM midrange. Can you remember when you struggled with the difference between the enter key and the field exit key? I can!

rp

Posted by rpence on January 24, 2007 at 12:13 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)

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