RE: Simple Subfile question

Rick Childers wrote:
 
>> You just need a little more experience with subfiles.  
>> After a while, when you have a subfile problem, 
>> you will know exactly how to fix it without even
>> giving it much thought.  Then you will be cruisin'.

Jim Langston said:

>Well, why should I need that much experience to 
>do subfiles to be able to do one?  I understand 
>that's the way they are, but why?  I don't have 
>this type of trouble with subfile type programs 
>in windows.  In any language, C++, VB, Delphi.

Lots of people have trouble with subfiles, and a little experience does
indeed help.  The main issue for  most folks I work with is the number of
interrelationships involved between the DDS and the RPG.  To complicate
things, OVERLAY, PUTOVR and OVRATR are not well understood by many.  

All too often, subfile beginners use a primitive (i.e. written in 1988 by a
subfile learner) "working" program as a template and go from there.  Doing
so, they never really grasp the relationships.  The tendency for AS/400
programmers to believe that they completely understand the application when
looking at one source member simply adds to the misery.  

"Learn by example" is a poor technique when the example isn't designed to
teach.  I can't speak to Jim's specific circumstances, but that's been my
general experience.

Buck Calabro
Commsoft; Albany, NY
"Nothing is so firmly believed as
 that which we least know" -- Michel Montaigne
Visit the Midrange archives at http://www.midrange.com
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