Re: "RPG isn't cool" (was: Re: IBM Secret)

Hans,

>is there a single easy thing we could do to improve the
>language?

Switch to a completely free-form syntax (or at least the calcs), so we
can start our expressions closer to the left-hand side then indent for
readability. :)

Seriously, as far as I'm concerned, it would be good enough to
implement it similar to how Paul Conte's RPG/free did, so even
existing opcodes with factor 1/2 or result field, etc requirements
would not necessarily need major rework.  It wouldn't even bother me
significantly if the operands in those cases were limited to the size
constraints of the current (ILE) fixed-format columns.

Just add a phase effective between /FREE and /FIXED pairs (or
whatever) where the source lines get reformatted then passed to the
existing parsing routintes.

Now that we can code our own subprocedures (the single biggest
improvement in my book!), RPG has in essence become extensible.  With
completely free-format, indentable calcs, RPG would be a great
language.

IMHO,
Doug
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