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The Midrange Programmer Philosophy
by Shannon O'Donnell
Welcome to the second issue of Midrange Programmer, OS/400 Edition. By this time, you
probably have a good idea of what kinds of topics we'll be covering and, more important, what this
newsletter will do for you and your career. And, hopefully, you are already looking forward to the next
issue. But before you dive into one of the technical articles in this issue, I wanted to take a moment
to tell you our philosophy, if you will, of why we at Midrange Programmer do the things we do.
Kevin Vandever, my co-editor, and I both work for a living. That is, we do more than sit around drinking
beer, picking our teeth, and trying to think up ideas of things to write about. Well, I do anyway. Kevin lives
pretty far from me, so there's no telling what he does. In any event, we both face the same kinds of day-to-
day challenges that you do. We get programming/design requests from our bosses, we spend hours banging
out code, and when we're all done, we create flow charts showing what the project was really supposed to
do. We also spend hours listening to users complain because our software does what they asked for, rather
than what they actually wanted it to do. In other words, our jobs are pretty much yours. So we know where
you're coming from.
And we think we have a pretty good idea of where you want to go. If you're like us, you enjoy the
occasional article that explains the theory behind something. After all, who among us hasn't stayed up until
the wee hours of the morning, unable to put down a page-turner like Quality of Service: Why It's
Important for Your Shop. I get chills just remembering the excitement of reading that one!
Sure, Kevin and I enjoy theoretical articles about current technology. But what we really want to read--and
what we think you really want to read--are articles that go beyond theory and give you the meat and
potatoes of programming. What we like are articles that assume you either know the theory behind
something, don't care about the theory, or are smart enough to figure out on your own how to find the
theory. We are going to strive to give to you, in each and every issue, articles that provide you with the
information you need and want to enable you to do your jobs better, faster, easier, and, hopefully, with just
a bit more fun.
Each issue of Midrange Programmer will give you articles that provide hands-on programming
techniques and examples, or other how-to advice, that will help you to be the very best midrange developer
you can be. In every article, our goal is to give you all the steps you need to solve a programming
problem.
In the last issue, for
example, Richard Shaler gave step-by-step instructions for obtaining, installing, configuring, and starting
Tomcat on your PC ("JavaServer Pages 101"). And if that wasn't enough, Richard went the extra mile and
included a working example of a JavaServer Page that interfaced with an iSeries, and then he told you how
to run it! That's the kind of hands-on, how-to article we'll run in each issue of Midrange Programmer,
OS/400 Edition.
But we want to do more than provide you with a hodgepodge of technical how-to's. Oh, yeah! There's a
method to our madness! We at Midrange Programmer want to give you articles on topics that help
you move beyond the simple world of RPG and COBOL programming for green-screen terminals. We
understand that these technologies are, and have been, our bread and butter, and we will certainly cover
topics in those areas. But we also want you to spread your wings a little and increase your knowledge of
some of the newer technologies out there, so that you'll be better equipped to choose the tool or technology
that is right for any given situation.
To achieve that, Midrange Programmer will provide you with articles on topics covering the entire
gamut of technologies you need to progress both personally and professionally in this business.
Midrange Programmer will contain how-to articles that give you step-by-step instructions on using
a wide range of tools and technologies. Here are just some of the areas we'll be covering in upcoming
issues: JavaServer Pages, Web servers, WebFacing, CODE/400, CODE/Designer, Java Native Interface,
RPG IV prototypes, ILE service programs, VisualAge for RPG, VisualAge for Java, WebSphere Studio,
and much, much more. In fact, we invite you to read each issue of Midrange Programmer over the
next 12 months and try out each and every example we give you. We think that by doing that, you'll gain
more real-world, hands-on experience than you could get in 10 years of trying to learn it all on your own.
How can I make such a bold statement? Because Midrange Programmer will draw on the
experience and knowledge of some of the most talented people in this business. Midrange
Programmer provides you with a single source for the most experienced midrange developers out there,
all of whom have the same single-minded goal of providing you with the kinds of hands-on technical
information that no other iSeries publication can provide.
Whether you're just getting started in your career or you've been doing it for so long you forget why you
come to work in the morning, you'll find something in each issue of Midrange Programmer that is
useful to you.
So enough reading. Time to start learning. And if you have any suggestions or ideas, or just feel the need to
vent, feel free to e-mail us at editors@itjungle.com. We welcome your
feedback.
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