Any Future in Progress???

Proguy

New Member
:red:
Hi All,
Started working on PROGRESS/QAD more than 12 years back and since then have been stuck with it. Have been confused for quite sometime now (at least 3 years) as to what else i can learn which would utilize my experience and at the same time have better carreer prospects. Though i LIKE Progress, do not find many job openings/opportunities here in the US compared to Oracle / Sap etc. All this leads me to believe there is no PROGRESS in progress. As you may have noticed it too, not many people are even aware about progress.Now with so many experienced people in SAP/ORacle apps would you recomend i start there now (at this old age??).Else what would be a better area??

Thanks in advance for your input.
 

joey.jeremiah

ProgressTalk Moderator
Staff member
The next thing to hit you would be when you realize you need a degree to
get anywhere in life.

Learning as you go and the level of professionalism that was exceptable a
few years ago is just not possible today.

Progress is somewhat of a niche market and compared to Progress, QAD is
even more so, that's something we all have to realize coming into Progress.
 

Proguy

New Member
Agreed. Wish had known before. Any thoughts on whether this status is going to there forever ??? I dont see a light at the end of the tunnel. I have known this for quite sometime and the confusion is only on what to do next?? Go with new technology along with Progress (progress.net etc)?? That i found to have even lesser options. Probably break away from it altogether and start fresh in another area??

Sorry if i am asking too many questions , but am thinking out loud here and have no intentions of spoiling any ones day.
 

joey.jeremiah

ProgressTalk Moderator
Staff member
... feel free to say what ever is on your mind, i'm not a progress groupie

what would be a good investment ? interesting to learn ? oracle, sap, mysql, postgressql, java, .net, web, web services, graphics ... ?


i've heard all sorts of suggestions. even creating jobs for yourself, developing open source apps and charge for consulting or at the very least some publicity.

take for example Jurjen Dijkstra and Gordon Campbell ( i hope it's not inappropraite mentioning names ), they've really carved a niche for themselves. and there are still tech and application that could be in demand.

as long as we're on the subject, would anyone be interested in developing an open source document archiving app ?


what ever you do i don't think you can go wrong with learning, progress or anything else. at the very least it would make things interesting.

it doesn't mean you have to drop progress, but i don't think you have to limit yourself solely to progress either. it would just make you a more well rounded developer.


currently i'm seriously getting into photoshop and flash. and not because i need to, because it's something i really love doing.

good luck !
 

Casper

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
Hi there,

My thoughts:

At first I must say, that I like Progress very much, so I'm probably a bit biased....
I work with Progress now for 7 years, as I understand form many posts I've read it's hard to find jobs in Progress and therefore not easy to make a career change by switching company's.
The situation in Holland (where I live) isn't that bad if you're a Progress Developper. There are plenty of jobs here. But still I think it's always nessecary to keep learning. I for myself have this ability witihin the job I'm doing. I work at R&D department in our company. This function gives me all the opportunity to learn more then 'just' Progress. I programmed in java for over a year, made webbased applications, now we're working on ASP solutions, so the whole windows 2003 TS stuff comes in the picture.
In this way I broaden my overall knowledge of what's happening in the world. For me it's important to know more then 'just' Progress, for one because our applications have to keep up (and stay ahead) with the competetors.
Next year I hope to get my certifications for RH and AIX. So even when there is going to be a problem with Progress I think I have enough knowledge and experience with IT in general that it shouldn't be too hard to find another job.
That said I think Progress is going to stay for quite a while, there product is getting better and better (apart form there licensing structure with regards to webbased applications..... ;-) )
Much limitations of the Progress Database are getting rid of. in 10.1A --> improved sql support. With the use of type II sorage area's table scans are quicker with sql then thay are with the 4GL for example. (nonindexed search vs indexed search). Online adding of tables, fields and indexes is made possible. And referential integrity is on the agenda.
Another nice and important feature is auditing which is introduced in 10.1A (Sarbanes-Oxley compliance).
With products like sonic, dataserver , webservices and so on the progress Database stands wide open for other applications. In the area of integration much can be learned from the way different apps interact. I think knowledge of this is a big pre in current IT-development. (knowledge of JMS, .NET, XML,Java,SQL) is usefull for every developer. (although I'm not sure if .NET should reside in my list, but anyway..)

Well, don't know if it makes sense, but these where my thoughts on a cold and rainy saturday morning in holland.

Greetz,

Casper.
 

Casper

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
lol, we understand english as well, so that's no problem.... :D (and dunno if you like the weather here)
But I meant to say that in the current Progress world there are lots of opportunities to learn beyond Progress especially if you get involved in integration projects, development of new applications or dba stuff.
IMHO language and DB are just tools to accomplish something. If you keep in mind what you want to accomplish then you always have to keep your mind open for what tools there are in the world.
 

Casper

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
You're absolutely right about the girls :D
And why be serious it's weekend..... (forgot about it :)
 
I've worked with Progress for about 12 years also. In that 12 years I've constantly worried about finding work (as have much of my colleagues who develop using Progress).

Suffice to say, I've never been out of work (including successful stint as a contractor) - and I'm on a higher salary than most of my colleagues using other development tools/languages.

And yes, I agree that Progress has so many useful products (apart from the obvious one) that they are unlikely to disappear over night.

Yes, you should learn other skills, but, frequently these can be introduced within your day-to-day role, e.g. I learnt HTML by introducing WebSpeed to the organisation. I also learnt HP-UX (and scripting) because our database were sat on UNIX servers.

Another thought - in fact chaps I'd be interested in your opinion on this (true or not - what do u reckon?? ). I was having my usual whinge to my PSC Account Manager the other day - as usual, knocking PSC's Marketing strategy and he said 'Apart from SAP, Progress, worldwide, actually has more users logging on that any other !!!!!!!!!!! ).

Do follow the links to other posts though (which I have also posted to).

I'm speaking from a European perspective, not sure about market in USA though.
 

joey.jeremiah

ProgressTalk Moderator
Staff member
disclaimer, these are just my personal views and that's all it is, no
intention to offend anyone.


i think alot of it, no relation to the current post, is a mix of boredom
and frustration.

people who learned as they went along, mainly from experience and
never really studied progress.

they're still stuck doing the same thing they did 10 years ago.

i've met too many developers who never opened the docs, have
no idea what a transaction is and haven't even heard of Gus :)

they're sick of progress and the customers have this terrible view of
the product.


i don't think there's a high awareness or a culture of learning in progress,
as a whole. maybe if customers would require some sort official training
or qualification ?

i full heartedly believe that an on going learning program, in one form or
another, should be a part of any company.

if for no other reason then making things more interesting. oh, and also
making better products.
 
and haven't even heard of Gus
I met him once at dinner at a tech event. I asked him a couple of inane questions, just so I could say he'd spoken to me. Noone else round the table knew who he was.

Such is the ignorance of many a coder.
 

Proguy

New Member
Well, the market in US is different at the least for Progress except maybe for a few specific regions. I have no Averse to learning other skills and in fact am the unix Sys admin for our company as well. Have quite a bit of knowledge on the windows server too. But these other skills are what i would call secondary skills since am not too sure i want to do Unix sys admin for a living. I guess what i am looking for is a long term Primary job skill (with more job options than progress) and continuos enhancement related to that skill. SAP and Oracle seems to be the only other 2 that may fit into this category and am leaning towards SAP , though i may be late at this stage and likely to start at the bottom which is why i am hesitating.

I would be interested in your and all others opinion on this and if anyone forsees Progress becomming as popular if not more as oracle.

Progress_Guy said:
I've worked with Progress for about 12 years also. In that 12 years I've constantly worried about finding work (as have much of my colleagues who develop using Progress).

Suffice to say, I've never been out of work (including successful stint as a contractor) - and I'm on a higher salary than most of my colleagues using other development tools/languages.

And yes, I agree that Progress has so many useful products (apart from the obvious one) that they are unlikely to disappear over night.

Yes, you should learn other skills, but, frequently these can be introduced within your day-to-day role, e.g. I learnt HTML by introducing WebSpeed to the organisation. I also learnt HP-UX (and scripting) because our database were sat on UNIX servers.

Another thought - in fact chaps I'd be interested in your opinion on this (true or not - what do u reckon?? ). I was having my usual whinge to my PSC Account Manager the other day - as usual, knocking PSC's Marketing strategy and he said 'Apart from SAP, Progress, worldwide, actually has more users logging on that any other !!!!!!!!!!! ).

Do follow the links to other posts though (which I have also posted to).

I'm speaking from a European perspective, not sure about market in USA though.
 

Casper

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
I would be interested in your and all others opinion on this and if anyone forsees Progress becomming as popular if not more as oracle.

If Progress would become half as popular I would already be surprised.....
(But ok, I must admit I lost my glass ball a while ago )

I just came back from a PUG meeting and one thing Progress told was that they're going to invest more in education (like university programs) so anyone who does computer sciences at least heard from Progress (and perhaps starts liking it :) )
I think thats one step in the right direction.

Casper
 

Progress4Living

New Member
Please keep in mind.
Todays SAP is tomorrows FORTRAN.
Languages, Tools, DB systems come all the time.
The important thing is the skills you learn without your knowledge.
Logics, Problem solving Skills, Database/Application Desgin Skills
Management Expertise... etc.
These are skills we learn as we spend more time tackling various issues in our daily job functions, even without our knowledge.
This is my 15th Year in IT, about 12 years in Progress.
We have to learn to think of our skill set beyond our progress knowledge (or expertise in any tool in particular).
In IT tools/techniques come and go all the time.It is the nature of the beast. But most pretty much follow the same patter. I dont think the way computers understand and process change a bit. For a key word or command in one usually has a key-word or command which does a similar function in another language.
One should concentrate on a number of other aspects of Information technology Skills. A beginner(in IT) with the best expertise in SAP (may be )cannot compete with any ones problem solving/Design skills which was achived over years. Also The business knowledge you learn every day is an asset. In 15 years of my IT career, I happen tohave worked in a variety of domains commanding immense expertise in every one of them.
Tomorrow lets say I am out of work in Progress, I still can use my expertise in other areas. We should have that optimism. No one is sure which technology is going to last for even, I dont think any single technology capable of doing it. In that sense I dont think anybody would be capable of catching-up with all the technological changes. there are things in IT that do not change much. Concentrate on those at this age,and GOD WILLING.
 

tslmba

New Member
Future of Progress??? Not sure

I have over 10 years of progress. I got an MBA while working with DataSul FrameWorx and have stopped working with progress for the last 3 years. Now, I am back on the job hunt and I am finding that there are oppurtunities in the eastern United States, but not much in the west. From Texas east there seems to be plenty of work, however when you work with progress you are working with a pigeon hole technology. It is a great technology, half the expense as Oracle, and word indexes are absolute kick butt, however, the pay will never net you more than 80,000 at best.
Best bet if you are planning to stay in IT is to love progress but train for technology that you have a passion for and is available in your area.
Getting certified in something new may be worth it to you, but I my self have found the certification industry to be nothing more than a farce. You can train to take a test, but the real world is differnt. Heck, I just read a certification for a genuine 'Ethical Hacker Certification'. Now that is a bunch of bull and a waste of money.
At this time I have an BSB information technology, MBA Technology Management, and I am looking at a PHd in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and then a clinical pscycology degree, hence working my way out of IT totally. This is my way of moving out of the rutt we programmers all find ourselves in as technology innovates and we obsolete our skills.
I know a programmer who worked the field for 60 years, (very old guy). He told me most programmers leave the field, become something else. The problem is that we tend to pigeon hole ourselves and work in technology that becomes obsolete. Then we find ourselves asking what are we to do now? We play catchup because technology is what we know and then we do it all over again.
Ask yourself if you want to be a programmer for the rest of your life. After all it is a glorified ditch digger and you will never get the real bonuses that busness executives will.
I guess the real question is not whether PROGRESS has a future. It is used in some great systems world wide. The question should be, 'do you have a future with progress'.
Recently I visited a progress company in San Diego and I was told that all new programmers are being hired out of India. The shop looked like it was being outsourced.
Datasul has hundreds of programmers under one roof and I met them. They live cheap by our standards and many business managers don't really understand the loss of control the will experience when they outsource. It looks good now on the bottom line, but the real gotcha comes later when they want to change to react to revelations in the business environment in which they compete. They will find they lack the true flexibilty. But that is a ways off.. So ask yourself. Is progress what you really want in your future?
 

Proguy

New Member
Tslimba,
Many thanks for your frank and honest opinion. I am going to be doing some honest soul searching and come to a conclusion.

Thanks again for your posting.

Proguy.
 
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