RE: interesting /. story on RPG

But... if you're going to re-do the application to use gtk, Qt, Xlib, etc,
why use RPG?  Write it in C!  Write it in Perl!  Write it in Python!
Why RPG?  Why not make use of the millions of existing Unix developers?

Is there enough demand for people who want to run RPG on Unix to justify
the HUGE expense of writing it?   Would it make any kind of business sense
for IBM to try to sell it that way?

Now, if IBM would write an SLIC for an Intel box so you can run OS/400 on
Intel hardware...  THAT would be useful :)


On Fri, 22 Feb 2002, James Rich wrote:
> >
> > My guess is your ncurses and MySQL solution is going to become a little bit
> > more difficult.  If you manage to get even close to that, add a few more
> > features: SFLFOLD, popup windows, KEEP and ASSUME, and SFLNXTCHG are a few
> > good ones for starters.
> >
> > Oh, and don't forget the support for things like CSRLOC and SFLRCDNBR.
>
> I guess my point is that these aren't really RPG language things.  Of
> course trying to write a screen file compiler would be hard and probably
> stupid.  But why use subfiles and old style 5250 screens when you have qt,
> gtk, motif, tcl/tk, java, mozilla, Xlib, etc. at your fingertips?  You
> don't need OS/400 style screens and reports to write RPG.  RPG is good for
> basically one thing:  record level access, whether that access is done
> with matching records, primary files, chain, setll/read or whatever.  Some
> tasks are most easily accomplished using the RPG type of record level
> access.  For everything else, RPG does things as well or worse than other
> languages/toolkits.  RPG on other platforms would allow other platforms to
> use that strength.
>
> Of course this wouldn't enable applications to port from OS/400 to linux,
> so my earlier statements don't really apply.
>
> James Rich
> james@eaerich.com
>