Expert: Concise Systems/Laird Scranton - 4/15/2004

Question
I am fresher in the field of as/400 and want to know what questions can be asked on the junior level for developement in RPG/CL in an Interview
and what are the best books and best sources on net for novice like me

PLS Help

Answer
If the interviewer knows that you have little background yet in AS/400 or iSeries computers, then they will be looking for general experience with software packages, any programming classes, any PC-based programming languages you might be familiar with.  The AS/400 is a business computer, different than a PC.  It is not oriented toward graphics or graphic printing, or even so much toward the internet.  It is a very reliable, large capacity workhorse for many users. RPG is a fixed-format language, meaning that, in a program, instead of writing something that looks like:

x+y=z

you write according to a pre-set layout, like:

FACTOR1   OPERATION   FACTOR2  RESULT
X         ADD         Y        Z

The most important question in programming is: If this doesn't work right, where is my second chance coming from?

That means, always being careful to make copies of files and programs before you change them.  

Programming an AS/400 is a great job - there's a learning curve, but it is continually interesting and fun.  The computer has very powerful indexing structures, which make it easy to step through very large data files very quickly. Once you're trained, jobs usually pay well, and a good programmer is always appreciated.

If you have other questions, you may be easier to reply to me directly at concisesys@aol.com

- Laird Scranton