RPG and Programming

My name is Curtis Barron, and I am a computer programmer.

Almost 30 years ago, I began to learn about computers and to program them using the business language RPGII. I was part of a group of people being taught by the manager of an IBM System 3, Model 10 minicomputer installation. The school was in his kitchen. We got the appropriate textbook. (I believe it was by Shelly and Cashman.) I was the only one of the group who actually got a job programming as a result of that class. My teacher hired me as a programmer at his company one day a week; providentially, only about a month before he left the company. I came on board full time in December, as a combination programmer and accounts payable clerk. I had gotten my toe in the door; I went in and never looked back. I have proceeded to learn all the succeeding new dialects of RPG- RPGIII, RPG/400, and RPGIV.

My attention has been focused, by my job, on RPG; however, I have an intense curiosity about other languages, old and new. I have tried to learn some of them, but I have usually been stymied by the fact that I had no particular project to use them on- I find it difficult to learn them without a particular goal. I have learned the following computer languages well enough to write “production” code - code that would be used by someone else - in Apple BASIC, GWBASIC (that came with my Tandy 1000), Visual BASIC, and a few routines in Rexx. I was rather proud of the GWBASIC effort; I built data entry screens in the style of the AS/400, instead of line-at-a-time data entry, having the user press enter to go from field to field and processing all the data when the last field was entered.

Besides religious activities, I enjoy reading and being with my family. My favorite authors are Jane Austen and James Herriot. I have contributed a number of comments to Austenblog, a Jane Austen discussion group.

I intend to write on my experiences and feelings about RPG - promoting it as a valuable computer language, discussing my ideas on programming technique and on programming in general. When I really get underway, which should be in just a couple of days, I hope you will find it interesting enough to come back and read again.

Comments are encouraged and welcomed.