Re: RPG V?

On 09/01/2010, at 3:46 AM, James H. H. Lampert wrote:

And of course, BCPL begat B, which begat C.

And B wasn't married which makes C a right ....

To keep slightly on topic: Rumours of RPG V? From where? The only source I've heard this from is Bob Cozzi himself. Hmm ...

Perhaps this is just because he doesn't like the way RPG IV was implemented (colon separators, semi-colon terminators, hyphens in op- codes, etc.). When I saw the teaser in the iSeries Newsletter I didn't bother reading the article. I just thought: Oh crikey! What's he smoking now? Perhaps he's rehashed all the stuff he wrote at MCPress and needs something new to talk about? If it doesn't exist then invent it.

Having scanned the article as a result of this thread I see little to substantiate the rumour. Just Bob pontificating on his preferred syntax. As for me, I think his DCL statement idea sucks. The article seems intended to create "buzz" and in that it seems to have succeeded but contains precious little substance.

I agree that RPG should have procedure overloading (he calls it parameter overloading)--I'd spend my entire 100 dollars on that one feature but I've said that for years and seem to be in the minority since the bulk of RPG development dollars ends up spent on yet another BIF most of which could be written by any competent RPG programmer. I want the RPG developers to give me the stuff I CAN'T write. I don't want them to do stuff the average RPG developer is simply too lazy to implement and I don't want them to waste money tarting up the syntax. Complete free-format is not necessary or desirable.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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