Re: Need some ammunition (Procedures vs. Sub-routines)

There is for our purposes absolutely no way for an internal procedure to
effect anything outside the program that contains it...

That being said, there is a potentially huge difference with the way a
program works in an existing job stream when it was created with CRTBNDRPG
DFTACTGRP(*YES) vs the CRTBNDRPG DFTACTGRP(*NO) that is required to use
procedures. For example, if the program is dependent on overrides that get
done somewhere near the beginning of the job stream. It's nothing that
can't be dealt with, but you need to understand what's going on.

But true internal procedures give you a huge advantage over subroutines
when it comes to future maintenance; by "true" I mean that the procedures
make zero or few references to global variables and are dependent on the
data passed in as a parameter. Procedures are self contained, so not only
is it "safer" to change a procedure than a sub routine, but you can add new
sub procedures with little concern as to what is already there.

Lastly, procedures are simply more productive. Taking an example from Jon
Paris (
http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/developer/rpg/Three-Good-Reasons-to-Stop-Writing-Subroutines/?page=3)
which
is easier to understand what's being used for input/output?
WorkDate = InputDate;
ExSr DayOfWeek;
DayNumber = WorkDay;

vs
DayNumber = DayofWeek(InputDate);

Charles


On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 11:00 AM, RPGLIST <rpglist@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I won't go into the entire lengthy and boring conversation I just had with
upper management, but I was basically told that under no circumstances am
I to add procedures to certain applications. The justification is that
by doing so, we will be required to re-test the entire system, payroll,
dispatch, load balancing, AP, AR, etc.

I however was provided an opportunity to make my case, and I have a list
of reasons, but I need every bit of ammunition I can come up, so any help
from ya'll would be cool.

Dutch


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