I can tell you that the International Spectrum Mailing list has
10,000+ subscriptions that ranges from Pick programmers to Admins to
end users... and this is just the US. Majority of these people are
employees not consultants or contractors.
I have personally talked to serveral pick programmers around the
country that are looking for people to hire them, and they are not
consultants or contractors. There are 3 head hunters that I know
about that represent Pick programmers and admins.
As far as converting from a MultiValue model to something else, I
would suggest to them that there is an easier way migrate their
applications without throwing away their existing applicaiton and
business rules they have been developing for the last 20 or 30 years.
All the MultiValue systems, including D3, have SDKs for JAVA and .NET,
as well as other environments. They can add new functionality or
rewrite selected functionality without going through the migration
pains of migrating their complete business to another technology or
application.
This would allow them to keep their existing business running, and the
ROI in place that they are use to with their existing system, and then
hire on someone that knows JAVA or .NET or some other language to
create the new functionality using existing subroutines and data and
dictionary files. I agree with Kevin, changing the development
interface will increase their costs by 2 or 3, and will cause projects
to take 3 or 4 times more time to finish.
I would suggest you change the way you refer to BASIC from a
"Programming Language" to a "Advanced Database Scripting Language".
All database have server side or database scripting and School taught
programmers don't even think twice about the idea of place small
programs or scripts on the database. This is actually the recommend
method from MIcrosoft when interacting with MS SQL Server. Which is
no different then creating a subroutine to return or update the
MultiValue database from JAVA or .NET application.
I would agree with you that looking at the schools doesn't a good
place for Pick programmers. Personally, I would not look at school
for any programmer due to the lack of experience in developing
applications. Most programmers that come out school (please keep in
mind, i'm a bit bias on this due to personal experience) know how to
WRITE a program, but know why the program needs to be written or how
it effect the business.
"Business Applications are magnitudes of order more complex than
academic computing class assignments". This from the Business
Application Paradigm, and most new programmers don't get.
I would be happy to talk more about this, and maybe provide you some
additional information to use.
Nathan Rector
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