Angus: How do you fool a fool?

In my web navigation, I try to avoid the AS/400 mines laid everywhere – mostly from ignorance and stubbornness. I am constantly surprised at all these smart technical people stuck in the far past. I understand it is human nature to close down as you get older, and live in a shrinking comfort zone of your own choosing. But, seriously, there has to be some limits.

Take this attempt at an April Fool’s joke posted THIS year on this site! Titled “IBM Eyes End of Support for AS/400“, it was meant to scare people into thinking IBM was dropping the platform. The first paragraph showed the true colors of the poster: “Well, sure. Someday. Everything becomes unsupportable eventually. But not to worry. Nothing imminent. Just a little April Fool’s humor to get your day going.“.

Let’s review. If we assume the platform is called AS/400, this might be funny. Let’s assume the platform is not called AS/400 and has not been called AS/400 for FOURTEEN years. Actually, that is not an assumption, but the reality. So, the humor part turns out to be “Well, sure. Someday.” – because IBM dropped support for AS/400 many many somedays ago!

Seriously, April Fool’s is turning out to be full of fools lacking the actual funny part.

Now, if only this particular fool would step up to IBM i and promote a platform that IBM is actually still supporting, I may not get as much crap on my feet from stepping on so many internet land mines…