RE: Adoption of new RPG techniques

> From: James Rich
> 
> I'm not sure why you think that I believe that the extended factor 2
is
> not part of RPG.  I never said or implied any such thing.

Considering the fact that I write for a living, I really didn't express
myself very well, James.  I apologize.  In one of your prior posts you
said:

>> To use such a field you need free format code 
>> (unless you use the "loose fixed format" of eval+extended factor 2).

This implied that you considered extended factor two somehow "above and
beyond" standard fixed format RPG IV.  My point was that most of the
things you included as benefits of /free are indeed available in fixed
format RPG IV.  The extended factor two is what makes /free so
superfluous.


> I think I see where our two points of view differ.  Your article
nicely
> points out a method that makes the free format precompiler directive
> (/free) unnecessary.  IOW, I understand your point to be that you are
> not against free format style coding, but against the /free directive.

Yes, but for more than just the fact that it is unnecessary.  I also
dislike the fact that it makes your code "modal", and in the /free mode,
some normal operations like MOVE no longer work, or work differently.
The decision by the compiler team to remove functionality in order make
use of the /free syntax is the primary object of my concern.


> My point is that since it is the free format style of the extended
> factor 2 that we all like (and indeed use all the time) that fixed
> format style coding is what is superfluous.  All the arguments against
> free format code with the exception of your MOVE argument rely on
making
> use of the free format capabilities of the extended factor 2.  So it
> seems truly odd to me that there are people who are against free
format
> code when they use it all the time (and like it - in fact prefer it as
> long as it starts in column 36).

You miss the point - it is the loss of the MOVE operation, and the fact
that mathematical operations no longer work the same, and the loss of
syntax checking, and the unnecessary requirements for semicolons - it is
these things that make /free an onerous change.  Where a simple
extension to the fixed format could have made for a seamless change, the
compiler team instead made it unnecessarily difficult to move from one
syntax to the other, and it is that with which I disagree.

It is not that /free is bad.  It is just that its benefits do not make
up for the things the compiler team decided we must lose to get there.
And it's especially distasteful because there are no sound reasons for
the losses.


> > Have you actually tried using fixed format RPG IV, James?  You seem
to
> 
> Yes, all day long.  But assuming I said something that was true, would
> my background somehow make it false?

No, but the errors in your assumptions undermine the credibility of your
statements.