AW: Problem with non QUALIFIED DS

3) The cast majority of RPGers on seeing the BASED keyword will go "What

the ... " - I used to teach this technique in my sessions on the D-spec but
have all but dropped it (and relegated it to notes pages) because such a
large percentage of the audience just glazed-over when they saw it.

I made the same experience and also moved off all pointer handling from my
courses and sessions. We use it for referencing but, but the reference data
structures are hidden in copy members I only told the programmers to define
their data structures or fields with LIKEDS or LIKE.

... and even worse if you see a C-guy programming RPG who uses the reference
data structures for new data structures but also uses Based for the new data
structures and starts allocating storage at the beginning of the
(Sub-)Procedures and Programs (and sometimes forget it to deallocate and run
into problems).

I'm currently working with such an application.

Unfortunately I have to downcompile to release V5R2 (as long as there are
some clients who still work with V5R2).

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards

Birgitta Hauser

"Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." (Les
Brown)
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." (Derek Bok)
"What is worse than training your staff and losing them? Not training them
and keeping them!"

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] Im
Auftrag von Jon Paris
Gesendet: Friday, 25. September 2009 00:08
An: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Betreff: Re: Problem with non QUALIFIED DS

There are three problems with the pointer-based-template approach -
both solved by the "real" template support in 6.1

1) A based DS cannot specify INZ values.

2) The compiler cannot detect that you didn't really mean to reference
a field in the template. You won't find this out until run time when
it goes book with a pointer exception. Which of course is only a
problem for people who don't test fully <grin>

3) The cast majority of RPGers on seeing the BASED keyword will go
"What the ... " - I used to teach this technique in my sessions on the
D-spec but have all but dropped it (and relegated it to notes pages)
because such a large percentage of the audience just glazed-over when
they saw it.

Thank goodness Barbara added the real template support!


Jon Paris

www.Partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com



On 24-Sep-09, at 5:37 PM, rpg400-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Ah - understood - I just put some dummy pointer name in the data
definition when making a template, in effect - just as you say, no
need
for explicit declaration of the pointer.