ASNA Encore lets you choose the migration target best for your business

RPG as a strategic migration target language

ASNA Encore RPG produces either a .NET Core binary or C# — Figure 1. ASNA Monarch is the only migration solution to migrate to C# or RPG

Virtually every migration prospect we talk to wants to get to C#, but some want to get there quicker than others.

Many IBM i RPG shops want to migrate their system-of-record RPG applications immediately to C# .NET. They have an experienced C# programming team at the ready and want to get to C# quickly. For these shops, ASNA Monarch migrates their RPG applications directly to C#.

However, there is another group of IBM i shops who want to migrate to C#, but they aren’t ready for the language leap that presents. Further, they have RPG programmers with a few years left on the clock. Moving directly to C# would marginalize those RPG programmers’ particpation in post-migration application enhancements and extensions.

For this second set of IBM i shops, ASNA Monarch provides an RPG-first migration option:

The application is migrated initially to ASNA Encore RPG. ASNA Encore RPG is a high-level, type-safe language for .NET. It has an RPG-like syntax and is a superb bridge to .NET for green-screen RPG programmers. With Encore RPG, RPG programmers can both participate in post-migration enhancments as well serve as mentors to the C# programmers as they work to understand the migrated application’s logic.
Later, perhaps when the RPG team retires, the migrated application, and all of the extensions and enhancements that has been performed on it, can be very easily to converted to C#. From there on out, the application is 100% in C# programmers’ hands without any trace of RPG remaining.

Pick your path to C#

Regardless of how strongly a given shop feels about its migration path, the flexibility of targeting RPG initially provides substantial benefits:

While an RPG-based shop may want an RPG solution right now, if that shop’s RPG team retires in five years, the idea of very painlessly converting the migrated project to C# then is very desirable. This way, the RPG programming team can maintain and enhance the application in the immediate future, but there is also time to plan for a rational, stepwise hand-off to the C# team.
The shop that demands C# initially, may find that there is a high value in first migrating the application to RPG, if only to have their RPG programmers help remediate the application and explain how it works to the C# team. Then, as projects are remediated in RPG, they are quickly converted to C# and handed off to the C# team.
Or, for those shops with C# programmers ready to hit road running, ASNA Monarch can migrate your application directly to C# without the intervening Encore RPG step.

In any case, it’s important to remember that the RPG estate application isn’t documented (or if it is, those docs are old and out of date). All of the behaviors, the workarounds, and the anomalies (a kind word for bugs!) are embedded in your RPG programmer’s heads. These RPG programmers are a highly valuable asset to have engaged in the application migration project. Using Encore RPG’s RPG migration path initially is a superb way to help get that knowledge passed off to the C# team. Once absorbed, it’s easy then to create a pure C# version.