Re: An odd thing

[Jeff Crosby <jlcrosby@xxxxxxx>]

Booth,

> I ask because so often it seems like people make fun of using the RPG
> cycle, and when they do it makes me feel just a little bit older again. 

SOAPBOXMODE(*ON)

Don't feel bad/old.  I've been around for 20+ years using RPG and am
probably unique in what I am about to say.

Any new RPG program I write gets written in RPG/ILE.  Any RPGIII program
that I must touch for any reason, I convert it to RPG/ILE.  All opcodes
are EVAL, IF, DO, and WHEN whenever possible instead of MOVE, MOVEL,
IFxx, DOWxx, DOUxx, and WHxx.  I actually use pointers in RPG/ILE to map
arrays and fields to the same storage location instead of hardcoding
FROM/TO positions in a data structure.  My PC's AS/400 connection is
TCP/IP.  As soon as consistent device naming is available under TCP/IP,
all PC's will be changed to that.  Why am I telling you all this?  So
you know that I do indeed use 'new' things when appropriate or
beneficial.

That being said, any new report program I write in RPG, I use the cycle
and make no apologies for it, political correctness be damned.  Level
breaks and subtotals are so much simpler that way.  If someone has a
problem with that, that's exactly how I look at it;  it's _their_
problem, not mine.  Use the strengths of the language to do the job.

Anyone that can understand SQL with it's "set-at-a-time" logic as
opposed to "record-at-a-time" logic of a 3GL language can understand the
cycle.  Just think of the cycle as the RPG version of "set-at-a-time".

SOAPBOXMODE(*OFF)

-- 
-Jeff

jlcrosby@fwi.com
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