RE: RE: binder language, binding directories, bind by copy/reference

> From: Bob cozzi
>
> Yep, that could be a challenge coming down the road.

The problem is already here for production shops.  If you only create a few
dozen procedures, it's not big deal, but in a production shop where you
could have literally thousands of procedures, you have to mangle your
procedure names just to survive.

Then, if IBM does come out with a namespace concept, all those names will
have to be changed, and that is a huge amount of work.  This exact problem
happened with the Java Swing package names a few years back, and it was a
nightmare.  All existing code was broken, there was no way for a program to
be written to support both conventions, so there was no clean evolutionary
path.  I'd conservatively guess that it cost businesses thousands of
programmer hours before things were finally back on track.

IBM needs to determine how it's going to handle this issue, and then
determine how best to allow people to work today and yet provide a
reasonable growth path to the new conventions.  For example, is the idea to
use qualified dot-names like Java, or a more iSeries-like PACKAGE parameter?
Or maybe just the service program name itself?  Whichever route is going to
be taken, how can we name our service programs and procedures today so that
we can migrate to the namespace conventions of tomorrow with as little extra
work as possible.

Joe