AS/400 question

[Mike2000]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to this forum. Obviously. I always have computer related questions and the people in this forum seem to really know their stuff. I am starting to take some computer classes at the local community college. I am looking to get into networking. I am currently taking an AS/400 class. Someone told me that AS/400 is becoming obsolete. I was also going to take Programming in RPG and COBOL, which are programming languages used in AS/400. I don't want to waste my time if this is true. I can't understand why. One thing I learned is that AS/400 is one of the most reliable network operating systems around. This was only one person who told me this so I don't know if he knows what he's talking about. Does anybody know if this is true, if AS/400 is becoming obsolete? And would I be wasting my time if I took RPG and COBOL?

 

[skysthelimit]

Well I believe it's more of an opinion then a fact when they say it's becoming obsolete. Some banks and stores use it and they probably won't change over since I believe it would be too expensive.

 

[Swart]

AS/400 received a bit of a resurgence around 2000 but has been declining in new installations since. My opinion is that is a godd reliable and stable system that is approx. 20 years old. There are probably a few years of life left in the old OS. There are stil a few AS/400 systems around running in System32 emulation mode. Most sites that use it do so for the stable financial systems that it supports and the cost/benefit ration is not good enough to move over to a new system. Quite fankly, most modern financial systems are inferior to the old ones. This is because the AS/400 has grown from the top/down (from mainframe to mini), whereas modern fininacial systems are glorified windows packages that often can't add two numbers together.

COBOL is a dead language. I'm sorry, get used to the idea. There is still an enourmous amount of COBOL code out there however and we do need to have SOMEONE who can understand it. The languages of choice now are Java, PHP, C# and the occasional bit of PERL. I would stay away from the more proprietary languages and don't believe anyone who says .NET is the way to go.

I learnt to cut code with Fortran77 which has been buried right next to COBOL. Fortran and COBOL code is mostly incorporated into PL/1 in IBM systems.