RE: *INZSR - I still love you!!!

Well, at least *INZSR is visible somewhere in the code.  Then there's the
RPG logic cycle, which is invisible in the program (insert your own joke
here about the logic cycle being invisible to most programmers).  

RPG has hidden functionality; that's a characteristic of the language.  What
I find interesting in these discussions (varying in tone between
"put-your-guns-on-the-table" and somnolence) is how one decision made
several years ago affects the direction of the language today.  Of course,
watching "The Family Guy" helps too...

-reeve

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Hans Boldt
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 2:07 PM
> To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: *INZSR - I still love you!!!
> 
> Bob cozzi wrote:
> > Tony,
> > I'd have to both agree and disagree with this one.
> > I think the use of the *INZSR was very viable in RPGIII and is still
viable
> > today with RPG IV.
> > I've never bought into the notion that just because you can't see the
code
> > in front of you, the feature shouldn't be used. This is the kind of
excuse I
> > hear all the time when I ask people why they avoid /COPY like the
plague.
> > Having said that, if I could walking in someone else's shoes for a
moment
> > and suppose I was using another language (primarily) and not familiar
with
> > RPG, then yes, *INZSR would present an interesting learning curve to me.
I
> > would probably spend hours (days?) trying to figure out what the heck
was
> > going on.... But then I'd learn *INZSR and its function and I'd be set
for
> > the rest of my career.
> >
> 
> Learning curve for *INZSR? If you can't figure it out in minutes (if not
> seconds), then you're in the wrong profession. IMO.
> 
> If I remember correctly, one of the main reasons justifying the addition
> of *INZSR to the RPG III language was that there was no way to fully
> initialize your output fields prior to the first *DETL step of the RPG
> logic cycle. Now, while there /may/ have been enough users of the RPG
> logic cycle around at the V2R3 time frame to justify *INZSR, there are
> certainly a lot fewer cycle users today.
> 
> Maybe I'm just in a cranky mood today, but I'm not sure if saving one
> (1) EXSR statement in the typical RPG program is enough of a reason to
> justify having a special *INZSR name in the language. (Sure, there's
> always RESET. But as I suggested earlier, I don't think much of RESET
> either!)
> 
> As someone else mentioned, putting the initialization up front is
> clearer than putting it lower down amongst the subroutines.
> 
> Cheers! Hans
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> This is the RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries (RPG400-L) mailing list
> To post a message email: RPG400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
> visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/rpg400-l
> or email: RPG400-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
> at http://archive.midrange.com/rpg400-l.