Dead end tools and technologies you wished you hadn't bothered with

[Moscow Mule]

RPG II was cool. I even wrote a cross-reference program for it, in RPG II itself; it was a surprisingly appropriate tool for the job (because the source code had a fixed column layout, and the program liked to process fixed-layout data).

You can make a fair bit of money if you understand RPGII and how to convert it to RPGLE (or even SQLRPGLE). Not very often, but they do still turn up.

If you want to do anything even slightly unusual, Logic Cycle RPGII is a complete nightmare.

[sasguru]

Computers

[expat]

You can make a fair bit of money if you understand RPGII and how to convert it to RPGLE (or even SQLRPGLE). Not very often, but they do still turn up.

If you want to do anything even slightly unusual, Logic Cycle RPGII is a complete nightmare.

Bloody typical. Yes I understand RPG II. No, I don't know how to convert it to anything else. No job for me there, then.

[Sysman]

RPG II was cool. I even wrote a cross-reference program for it, in RPG II itself; it was a surprisingly appropriate tool for the job (because the source code had a fixed column layout, and the program liked to process fixed-layout data).

I only used RPG II for my first year in IT, but I can still remember how well it was suited to fixed layout inputs such as punched cards. I bet I could still do it if you gave me the manuals and a compiler.

Defraggers anyobody? I spent a few weeks organising licenses and setting them up via a scheduler over a decade ago and since then haven't had to touch them.

[Moscow Mule]

I only used RPG II for my first year in IT, but I can still remember how well it was suited to fixed layout inputs such as punched cards. I bet I could still do it if you gave me the manuals and a compiler.

As long as you can read, you can write RPGII. There's onscreen prompts & help (in the terminal emulator) for everything...

[expat]

As long as you can read, you can write RPGII. There's onscreen prompts & help (in the terminal emulator) for everything...

Not really, you have to know what you want to write. Then the help will, er, help you if you've forgotten how to. A quick reference does not make you a programmer.

[Moscow Mule]

Not really, you have to know what you want to write. Then the help will, er, help you if you've forgotten how to. A quick reference does not make you a programmer.

If you can read, you can write RPGII that will compile (first time).

[Doggy Styles]

I wasted a few hundred quid on the Borland C++ development kit and never used it.

I learned lots from using Babbage, the assembler for GEC 4000 computers in the 1980s/1990s. I don't suppose it exists any more.

Also, I've been at many clients over the years but hardly ever needed to use Unix. But I suppose that just makes me a lightweight contractor.

[expat]

If you can read, you can write RPGII that will compile (first time).

That's true. That's one of the things that was good about it: if you did know what was going in and what you wanted out, you pretty much told it that and it did it for you.

That was why it was supposed to replace programmers. It didn't, of course, because knowing how to think clearly from input to output is a rare ability, and that, not the knowledge of minutiae of code, is what makes a programmer.

[BoredBloke]

On my last contract I was required to build fingerprints for Enterprise Discovery to identify the bespoke applications used on our project. I predict that I will never ever be asked to do this again! There is a contractor that HP use to do this and he's on 1200 a day, but because the work is that rare he gets it all.