Re: Advantages of RPG

Buck wrote:

'Best' is a word that needs qualification. If your business is centred round producing full colour reports with graphics (say a utility bill) then RPG has some very distinct shortcomings. Someone who has never tried doing that will probably try to take me to task for writing that.

Nobody's going to take you to task. You're just being a little narrow. If color graphics is all that your business is, then RPG is not the language for you. If your business is writing game software, RPG is also not your language. If, however, your business is applying business rules based on external conditions, especially when that logic is altered by database settings, then RPG is your best choice, hands down.

And that mini-description above is pretty much the definition of most enterprise business applications. Color graphic reporting is definitely a business *function*, and I agree that RPG's not well suited for it. But that's nothing new; I believe that a browser interface is an integral function of many business applications, and RPG is a horrible language for that as well.

But that doesn't diminish RPG's pre-eminent position as the best business rules processing language available.

'For business logic' is a bit vague... what language can't execute an 'IF...ELSE' clause, or a 'DO... WHILE'? Business decisions really aren't all that difficult. Tedious to implement, maybe, but difficult?

Bidirectional parameters are one thing many languages lack. Another is the SELECT statements; perhaps the best implementation ever of conditional logic trees.

Joe