Should I start to study Adabas Natural?
Ben
company. They would like to train me up to use Adabas Natural. I'm 24,
I've got no programming experience.
Can you please all post your opinion on whether you feel this is a
good move. What future is there for adabas (after reading the posts on
this forum, I have to say I am not encouraged). How similar is adabas
natural to more modern object-orientated languages like java and c++?
How easily could I migrate from adabas to these if I needed to in a
couple of years from now?
Will adabas give me the foundation I need to build a career in
application development and other coding? Or would I be heading down a
dead end and have to re-skill?
My company tell me it's a good opportunity, but I never trust advice
from someone with a vested interest.
As I said, all input anyone can give on this will be well received. At
the minute I know little about adabas natural, so any advice will be
very useful.
Thank you very much in advance for any help!
Ronald Wijchers
first i want to clarify something: Adabas and Natural are two separate
things. Adabas is a database and Natural is a programming language. You
don't have to use the two together, although it's a good combination.
secondly, Natural is a third generation language, so you can't really
compare it to the likes of C++ or java. Although in Natural 4 Software AG
(makers of Adabas and Natural) introduced some features that you could
consider being a step towards object orientation, it is still a 3rd gen.
language and nothing more.
I assume, because they want you to learn Natural, that you would be
programming on a mainframe machine. It is possible to use Natural on a PC
but it is not as widely used as on mainframes. Keep in mind that 4th
generation languages are not as common on mainframes as they are on pc's.
These days on PC's most people consider it old fashioned if you program in
anything else but a 4th gen. language. Not so in the mainframe world.
Ofcourse, the big advantage of being in the mainframe world instead of the
PC world is that wages are a lot higher ! Anybody can program in C++ or java
these days but good mainframe programmers are a lot harder to find. I would
say that learning Natural will certainly give you a good start in a
mainframe programming career. If you're only interested in fancy PC
programming (Windows, games etc...) then forget Natural.
Ronald
"Ben" <bm...@ukonline.co.uk> schreef in bericht
news:2500acfd.01071...@posting.google.com...
Ben
Great reply. Thank you very much for setting me straight on a few
things there.
I'm afraid that I'm an inquisitive type, so I have a few more
questions:
will mainframe computing be a realistic long term career option for me
to pursue? or will I be joining a dying breed that will not last?
are third generation languages liable to be totally eclipsed by fourth
or even fifth generation languages?
can I make a transition from third to fourth generation language or
would that be like mixing oil and water?
is natural a good mainframe language to choose, or should I consider
looking elsewhere?
I'm sure there are plenty of other questions too, but that will keep
me going for now, and I don't want to plague you too much!
If anyone else has anything to add I would be very happy to hear it.
Thanks in advance
Ben
"Ronald Wijchers" <rwij...@nospam.nl> wrote in message news:<INTR19...@intermodulair.nl>...
Brian Johnson
There's actually no reason you can't learn both Natural and either Java or
C++. Having multiple skills under your belt will be an advantage someday.
Right now you have the opportunity to be trained in Natural, which not all
employers offer, and you can't find a lot of public courses on it. I
believe Adabas & Natural will be around forever, so you can definately plan
to build your career around these technologies.
Also, since you currently are not skilled in any programming language, I
recommend Natural as it is one of the most easy languages to learn. Like
BASIC, it comes... well... naturally.
Anyway, my advice is to get the Natural training, and once you have about 2
years of experience, take a class in Java and start fiddling with that.
You'll become quite valuable to whatever employer you choose to work for in
a short amount of time.
Brian Johnson
SAGGROUP, North American Area Rep
Ben
Brian
Thank you very much for your advice. I believe I am leaning towards
accepting the offer now, though I would still love to hear from as
many people as possible to get the broadest range of opinions I can.
It's true you can have too much information, but I believe some more
advice would be a real bonus this time, so if you are reading this,
please let me know what you think!!!!
Thanks in advance
Ben
Ronald Wijchers
>
> Great reply. Thank you very much for setting me straight on a few
> things there.
>
> I'm afraid that I'm an inquisitive type, so I have a few more
> questions:
>
> will mainframe computing be a realistic long term career option for me
> to pursue? or will I be joining a dying breed that will not last?
now that's a tough question. For years now, people have been saying that
pure mainframe computing is out and client server (as in small client ps's
and very big and fast pc's as servers) is very in. I have been hearing that
story for years and although more and more companies are using a client
server based infratructure, mainframes are still here. The main reason for
that is, i think, that mainframes are still the only computers that are able
to function as a server for the huge systems that major companies use. Lots
of companies (ours too) have tried to switch their system to a unix system
for instance. In our case the machine just couldn't handle it, although it
was one fast server, believe me ! Processing time just was too long.
So the mainframe is still here and it will be for years. And as Brian
Johnson already mentioned, getting to programming in a 3rd generation
language on a mainframe is a good starting point for any career.
>
> are third generation languages liable to be totally eclipsed by fourth
> or even fifth generation languages?
No, not for years. Again, this is mainly so in the mainframe world.
Companies have spend millions of dollars (or guilders or whatever) building
systems that suit their needs and almost all these systems are build using
3rd generation languages. When i started programming for a living in 1986
people were already talking about cobol being an old language and that it
wouldn't be long before it would dissappear altogether. Now, 15 years later,
cobol is still around simply because so many systems were build using it.
>
> can I make a transition from third to fourth generation language or
> would that be like mixing oil and water?
the transition is not that difficult. I cannot tell you what it's like to
start learning a 4th gen. language without any prior knowledge of
programming (in 3rd gen. languages, that is) but i think you definately
have an advantage when you already know how to program.
>
> is natural a good mainframe language to choose, or should I consider
> looking elsewhere?
Natural is very good. It fairly simple to learn. I've used Cobol as well as
Natural, and i prefer the latter. If you are talking career wise, then it
depends. I don't know about the UK, but here in Holland Natural isn't a very
widely used language. But then again that can also be an advantage as it
usually also means that there are not many people that know the language, so
you might be in demand....
VOODOOJOHN
is a Natural code generator that will allow you to create Adabas/Natural
systems very rapidly. It also supports object oriented design in the sense
that you have an object which does data editing and performs additions, updates
and deletes. This object can then called from multiple dialogs (online
screens). The purpose is to channel all your updating thru a common point
which lends itsself to ease of updating program logic. You only need to
change edits etc. in one place. Additionally SAG now has the ability using
Entire-x to put an Adabas/Natural backend (storage/access) on a system and a
Visual Basic front end (display). It actually works very well. So I would
recommend that you couple your Natural learning with some Visual Basic, if you
would like to put yourself in a good position. I once read that 25% of all
applications are written in VB, so by doing so can make you viable in both the
mainframe and client-server arenas. People with significant experience in both
are not easy to find.
Karell
I've been working in IT for over 13 years now and started out with 3,5
years in Natural (1.2 en 2.1) / Adabas (v5 i believe) and after that
with numerous other tools (Ideal/Datacom: supposed to be direct
competitor of N/A but a piece of crap); Clipper; Delphi and Progress
but none of these environments matched up with N/A as fas as building
business apps with it...!
My 2 cents worth!
Karel
PS. Did some Java as well: just one comment: ARGH!
On Fri, 20 Jul 2001 02:04:19 GMT, "Brian Johnson" <bria...@home.com>
wrote: