Re: Free format H, F, D and P specs

On 10/10/2013 12:43 PM, John Yeung wrote:

On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[John Yeung wrote:]
So if IBM can do braces in C on the i, why (as a technical issue,
setting aside whether it's a good idea) couldn't they do braces in
RPG?

I didn't realise that the RPG compiler shares the lexer, parser and
tokeniser with the C compiler.

I'm surprised at this style of response from you, Buck. Be that as it
may: It doesn't matter if there are *no* shared components between
the RPG compiler and the C compiler. The issue of being able to
recognize braces is just not that hard. (Jon Paris, if pressed, could
write a preprocessor.)

I apologise for the brevity. I seem to do better with more words but
always worry that I'm drowning the list. I never seem to find that balance.

It's my experience that when it comes to contemplating a project, the
technical issues are quite low on the list of impediments. Generally
speaking, time and money are at the top of the list. Management isn't
particularly concerned in the technical issues surrounding whether I use
subprocedures or subroutines, rather they are more interested in 'when
will that be done?' (time) or 'how many people will you need?' (money).
I can't think of a project that we developers initiated, rather someone
outside IT has some sort of demand that percolates through the chain of
command until Someone Important makes his desire to proceed known.
Without that demand, there'd be no project in the first place.

Thus, for me, the driving factors in order of precedence seem to be:
1) Demand
2) Time (tie for 2nd)
2) Money (tie for 2nd)
4) Technical facility

The fact is, if EBCDIC can be "worked around" with C and C++, there is
no technical reason they couldn't be worked around with RPG.

Technically, the US can send men to the moon and bring them back again.
All it takes is demand, money, people and time.
--buck

I didn't realize it was just as easy to add braces to RPG as it is to
send men to the moon and bring them back again.

The point isn't that braces are lunar-landing-hard; rather the point is
the difference between 'we can in fact do X' and 'we have demand, budget
and people to do X'.

Expressed upside-down, IBM is unlikely to deploy developers to solve a
problem that no executive sponsor/champion/advocate has yet identified.

No demand, no project. Not even for a technically easy project.
--buck