What good is ILE?

Good Evening, All Thank you for all of the responses. I'll try to respond to some of them as best I can. But first, I want to wish Scott Klement a speedy recovery. I've read many of his articles. I've spoken to him at conferences. I've even been fortunate enough to email back and forth with him discussing one of his articles. He's always been an outstanding mentor and friend to all things AS400. (Oops .... my bad. I know Scott dislikes it when people use the term AS400. I'm just not sure what IBM is calling it this month though.) To Birgitta Hauser:Your argument in favor of ILE based on modularity and black boxes is not compelling. I can use RPG400 or RPG IV (sans ILE complexities) to achieve the same modularity and black boxes. Although I do concede that the RPG400 code would not be as pretty as full blown ILE RPG with functions and bifs. Your arguments in favor of SQL usage though, have been fabulous. YOU convinced me about 3 years ago to use SQL in my RPG code. And I've never looked back. I am nowhere near your level of SQL ability, but your SQL answers in the forums showed me a better way. Thank you!
To Vern:You pointed out the people at TAA Tools, "also have a simplicity approach, and they see ILE as more complicated". That's all I'm asking about also. ILE is more complicated, so is it worth it? To Bradley Stone:I took Fortran, Lisp, PL1, C+, Pascal and assembly language while I was at university. Now I've spent 20 years coding in RPG and I've forgotten most of those other languages. I think you misunderstood my question though. I do use ILE techniques. For example, I use Giovanni Perotti's CGIDEV2 (found at Easy400.net) I found his website before I found your e-RPG methods. Also, I couldn't use Scott's HTTPAPI without ILE. Recently, I started using PHP because Zend offers a 'free' CE edition. I know PHP doesn't qualify as an ILE language, but I mention it to show you that I'm all in favor of advancing. I just want the "programming" road ahead to be cleaner, clearer and faster than it was before. I'm not sure ILE does that. Also, I don't think I'll ever ask things like "should I use bind by copy or bind by reference" because that question is too small. That's arguing over a small detail of ILE. I prefer to ask the bigger question, "Is ILE worth the added complexity? If the answer is yes, then we can hammer out the details of bind by copy or reference without any bickering and arguing. :-) To Alan CampinYour Think400.de site is fantastic and I've used several of your programs. (Thank you) But your own COMPILE routine lends credence to my question about the added complexity of ILE. Or, if I may please quote the README from your COMPILE routine: "One of the single biggest problems in creating objects on the AS/400 (Iseries, I5, whatever it is this week) is remembering all the options used to create the object and, if you are using PDM, which option to use to create the object (14, 15, etc).

My Compile utility solves this problem by storing the commands to create an object in the header and allowing you to use a single PDM or WDSC command to create them.

With the coming of ILE and multiple modules, binderies, service programs, etc, having some sort of Make tool is absolutely essential" I couldn't have said it better myself! And please, don't misunderstand me. I do use ILE. I have not stuck my head in the sand. Twenty years ago, I had several job offers from many AS400 employers. That's not the case today!! I can't find any AS400 job and consider myself lucky that my employer has not thrown out its last AS400. My employer has gone from 7 AS400's to just 1 in 10 years. To Everyone Else:Thank you for your comments. What good is ILE? I don't have a satisfactory answer. I use it and will continue to use just so that I can have functions and bifs. I'll just never like the added complexity. Now, it's back to obscurity and anonymity for me.