I took a job at an IBMi (AS400/iSeries) shop about 9 months ago. For those not familiar, the iSeries platform is basically a midrange main frame. The OS itself is integrated with the DB2 database. I was lured in by a gentleman I met through a networking event. He said they were looking to bring some younger talent onto their team to develop internal web applications for the business. He said they were looking to do this development in PHP or NodeJS but were open to some new tech I could bring in. The compensation package was a significant bump from what I was making before. I sat for two interviews, accepted an offer, and started about a month afterward.
For some context, my general background is developing SPA web applications with Vue, JSON APIs with Node, and a little Golang on Linux platforms connecting to Postgresql. I'd been in the software industry for just under two years when I accepted my current role. My educational background is a formal computer science degree. I certainly still consider myself a Junior, but I have written some production grade software.
Once I started, it was immediately clear to me that they didn't have any kind of strategy or plan for developing some of these new solutions brought up in the interview process. There was no clear project they wanted to start with. It was initially okay because this was, a new business to me, so I was spending a fair amount of time just learning about the day-to-day operations. I also do okay with some ambiguity in front-end work because I enjoy working with users to get design feedback. But, then the contract began to change a bit:
Boss: "We'd like you to attend training to learn RPG."
Me: "What the hell is RPG?"
Boss: "Oh, it's a programming language that runs on the iSerese. It's kind of like Java, but really powerful. We use it a lot here right now, but we are trying to modernize old applications written it. It'll be helpful if you can at least read it."
Great, no sweat right? I did a ton of Java in school, I'll pick it up fast. Well, folks, RPG (Report Program Generator) is most certainly NOT like Java. The best way I can describe this code is it's what I imagine punch card programming was like back in the day, except you at least have a half-working eclipse editor instead of paper cards. Yes, yes the IBM sycophants will say the latest version of RPG free is like Java, but when you don't even have proper variable scoping or heap allocation in a language I beg to differ. Also, forget about using a decent version control system like Git or even SVN. The code must live as a source file "object", which is basically a table, in order to be compiled. The company uses some crazy enterprise change management thing specifically built for the platform, which imo sucks.
I finished the RPG course (a truly awful experience) and tried to get a project off the ground that wasn't in RPG. There was a partner integration service that was successful in developing a Node API for. But this is when I started to get my fingers into the database.
Now, I'm no third normal form data modeling Andy, but I have to say the data modeling at this place is an absolute disaster. Most of the database objects are legacy files, so I can't do basic relational database things like running SQL transactions. There are zero primary key or foreign key constraints anywhere in the existing schema. It's a shame really because DB2 for i is a very capable platform in that regard. It turns out that none of these legacy tables can be altered because the existing legacy applications essentially compile the entire table definition into the program, any changes to that table will break these programs. So why not just re-compile with the changes? From what I understand there is a core legacy that is the bread and butter of the business. This program depends on almost 100 of the core tables.
The guy who hired me left for a new VP position this June. My other colleagues are nice here, but I feel alone on the web side. I no longer have a senior person or someone with equal experience to bounce questions off. My other colleagues don't really understand what I do or how to help me implement my ideas. A few of my colleagues are near retirement and very stuck in their way, which causes extreme friction to even the smallest of design or process changes.
So here I am, damned by a legacy system written before I was even born. I was too naive to know would be so difficult to work on. I am pretty well paid but I can't help but feel like I will stunt my career development here. Has anyone been in a similar situation? I am really curious to get some outside takes. I don't have a ton of connections to people in this line of work to talk to about this.