Re: Data structures

Jon Paris wrote:

Holy Data Structures Batman! That looks a lot like COBOL!

<grin action="running, ducking, hiding"/>

Don't see why David - that's pretty much the heritage of EGL's data definition capabilities.

Yup. Unlike most "modern" languages that don't understand even the most basic application concepts such as fixed precision primitives, EGL is built for writing business applications. To that end, it built on arguably the most successful business data definition concept ever made: the COBOL record. Of course, EGL then added a whole bunch of capabilities such as being able to automatically generate SQL code or MQ Series code, or to automatically convert to and from EBCDIC when calling RPG.

That's the nice thing about working with EGL: it does business. The more I work with it the more I understand IBM's position that it's the next great business language. First COBOL, then RPG, now EGL. No other language is as well suited for business logic. Java isn't, and none of the scripting languages even comes close. The only thing even marginally approaching EGL's functionality and productivity in that regard is the Ruby on Rails framework. Love him or hate him, DHH (Ruby on Rails' creator) did a good job in making it easy to design basic web applications.

Unfortunately, you then have to maintain them in Ruby, which is as bad a language as any of the other scripting languages for business.

Joe