RE: *** ADMIN: New article posted at imho.midrange.com

Yes, the full operational descriptors and overloading would be nice.

With them, we would pretty much have our own bifs.

Additionally, what I'd really like to be able to do is pass *ISO0 to my own
procedures instead of '*ISO0'.

Come on IBM, share the secret!!!


Charles Wilt
iSeries Systems Administrator / Programmer
Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America
ph: 513-573-4343
fax: 513-398-1121
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Douglas Handy [mailto:dhandy@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 1:04 PM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Re: *** ADMIN: New article posted at imho.midrange.com
> 
> 
> Mark,
>  
> > Granted, but really all you need to do is put all of your 
> homegrown 'bifs'
> > in a binding directory and include in your h-spec. 
> 
> And a copy member with the prototypes.
> 
> But still, I think it is very easy to do.  I've always felt the
> ability to create subprocedures, whether local to a program or as part
> of a service program, is the single most important advantage of
> RPG/ILE.  A binding directory, service programs, and copy book
> prototypes make them almost as good as being built-in functions.
> 
> With one major caveat:  we don't have full operational descriptor
> support, nor can we overload a function.  Without full operational
> descriptors, there are some limitations of what we can accomplish with
> numeric arguments.  And without overloading, we may need multiple
> versions of what may otherwise be a single function.
> 
> The lack of overloading has never hampered me that much.  The lack of
> operational descriptors for non-character fields is a bigger
> limitation, though I understand it is not under Toronoto's control so
> I won't keep beating that horse.
> 
> However, to me the current binding directories, service programs, and
> prototype includes are close enough to "built-in" that I don't see a
> big advantage to being able to "register" them with the compiler.
> 
> Doug