“Who is Jon Paris” and other questions

4 points by JonFParis 10y ago ↗ HN

Since I was personally singled out for ridicule (albeit relatively gentle) in this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10093590) but cannot comment there I thought that those who commented might appreciate a response. I'm apparently limited to 2,000 characters so there will be a lot left out.

<quote>Oh boy! Who is Jon Paris, and what is this article? It's as if somebody was writing about python circa 1997.</quote>

I'm a 45+ year computer professional and spend my waking hours trying to introduce my peers to new concepts. Python is not news to me, but it is new to the IBM i as an official offering. Note "AS/400" hasn't been made for over 15 years.

<quote>Very odd. It's like somebody's been hiding in a cave since 1995 and just discovered python, object-oriented programming and HTTP.</quote>

Been writing web programs for over 20 years. Done Smalltalk, Java, PHP, ... But like many of my peers find it hard to "think" in OO and have never had 6 or 8 months to do nothing but OO. Real world Procedural programming kept getting in the way.

<quote>He's previously been writing RPG for the AS/400. That's pretty much exactly like living in a cave since 1975.</quote>

That's just silly. Modern RPG IV would not be recognizable to anyone who learnt 1975's RPG . It is a good language for writing core business applications. Those boring ones that need to do precision math with numbers that have decimal places. Things like bank accounts, inventory, etc.

IBM i is a highly integrated platform and because of that many customers are unwilling to use anything not "blessed" by IBM. I personally find that frustrating but I understand it. There has been a version of Python 2 available for many years which was ported by a group of users. But it wasn't sanctioned and so few use it.

There are many other comments I could respond to but I'll leave it there for now. Happy to continue the conversation if anyone cares.

5 comments

[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 14.8 ms ] thread

greenyoda 10y ago ↗

Interesting to see your reply. I spend some of my time working with IBM i and z machines that are running web apps written in Java.

FYI: The reason why you couldn't comment in the original thread was because it's too old - comments on articles get disabled after a few days.

JonFParis 10y ago ↗

Thanks for the info. I found out in another thread that it is shut down 14 days after the last comment. I just saw it all too late since I don't frequent this board/list.

dang 10y ago ↗

Hi Jon, welcome to Hacker News. (I'm a moderator here.) I'm sorry that you felt singled out for ridicule—the comment I think you're referring to was indeed dismissive and supercilious and exactly the sort that we don't want on this site. Most of us are fascinated by computing history and have deep respect for the contributions of others.

I'm going to open that old thread so you can respond in it. But I also hope you'll stick around and give the better side of this community a chance to show itself. Getting newer software to run on older hardware is actually a common theme here and some of those posts are among the most interesting. It sounds like we have a lot to learn from you, so please feel welcome.

Thanks dang for your warm welcome. I will address the outstanding comments in the original thread.

Since you mention an interest in history dang, you and others might find this article of interest. My partner and I wrote it to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the IBM i. http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/developer/rpg/RPG_25/.

More recently I have been authoring a "behind the scenes" review of the birth of the current version of RPG. It discusses evolution of the language of which I was one of the "fathers" during my time with IBM. The series is not yet complete but starts here: http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/Blogs/iDevelop/June-2015/The-Bi...