RE: X-Spec (was: "RPG isn't cool") -- MIDRANGE-L

Hans:

There are some of us that have been following the "RPG/free" debate for
years and would have killed for what IBM has in the wings now.
Unfortunately, I just don't see this happening now.  Too much emphasis
on Java nowadays.  Regardless, I'd like to answer your questions anyway.

Dave

(snip)

> I would like to ask those interested to offer opinions on the
> following design question:  To what extent should the fixed-form
> opcodes participate in the new scheme?  It is possible to support
> all except 9 or 10 opcodes. (Most of these require resulting
> indicators, which are not allowed in the CF-Spec).  But other
> opcodes fall into a number of general groups:
> 
> 1) IFxx, DOWxx, etc.  There are currently expression alternatives
>    for these, so why bother carrying these forward in the new
>    scheme.  Do we support these in the CF-Spec?  ie. Do we allow
>    code like:  " CF   ifeq counter 17 "?
If you're gonna do free form, do it right.  Don't carry extra baggage
into it.

> 2) String ops:  SCAN, SUBST, XLATE, etc.  There are expression
>    or BIF alternatives (or will be) for most (possibly all) of
>    these.  Do we support these opcodes in the CF-Spec?
Don't support op codes which have alternate BIF's.

> 3) Move ops:  MOVE, MOVEL.  You could code EVAL/EVALR for many
>    moves, but not all MOVEs are easily convertible to the EVAL
>    statement.  Do we support MOVEs in the CF-Spec?  (If not, we
>    would have to add additional new BIFs, which still wouldn't
>    cover all of MOVE semantics.)
What MOVE semantics wouldn't be covered?  Would other BIF's such as
%SUBST, etc., take care of the problem?  If not, I'd support keeping
MOVE's.

> 4) Arithmetic ops:  ADD, SUB, etc.  As many have already
>    discovered, arithmetic in expressions is not totally
>    compatible with arithmetic in the fixed opcodes.  Do we
>    support these in the CF-Spec?  ie.  Do we allow code
>    like:  " CF  add 1 counter "?
Would be good if the syntax for freeform RPG would be similar to other
languages so the above expression would be nice.

> (This list isn't complete, but is representative enough for the
> purpose of helping us decide the issue.)
> 
> So, the general issue is how much of the "old" stuff do we carry
> forward in the CF-Spec and how much can we leave behind?
> 
> Cheers!  Hans
> 
> Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com
> 
> 
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