ILE Conversion

[Jon.Paris@xxxxxx]

 >> (Waiting for Jon's blast...:)

BOOM!  Hey I hate to disappoint Don!

Personally I see no general reason of any kind to keep _any_ RPG III
programs in the shop.

The improved source layout of RPG IV gives more white space and is just
plain more readable than RPG III.  The maintenance benefit of that alone
would make it worth the effort to me.

There is no need to go to ILE to use RPG IV - and it is only when you go to
the full ILE that issues of overrides etc. come up.  That is why I asked in
my note what the motivation for full ILE is.  If you use CRTBNDRPG you are
creating a highly compatible OPM style program that will co-habit with OPM
stuff very nicely thanks.

The problem with not switching is that you tend to miss out on
opportunities to incorporate new function while performing maintenance.
"Is it worth converting to use a single IF statement rather than IF/ANDIF"
probably not.  However if you convert as a matter of course whenever a
program next requires maintenance, your subsequent maintenance efforts will
benefit and you don't have to try to rationalize it each time.

As to Don's specific points:

 >> They're smaller,

If you really give a rip about this then compress observability etc.  They
are now (mostly) smaller than the OPM equivalent.  The run-time footprint
can be larger if you just stay with the OPM model, but I don't know of a
single customer who had to order any kind of upgrade to accommodate the
change.  Frankly I'd still consider it worth the effort.

 >> smaller source,

There is no compulsion to use the longer (112) record length for RPG IV -
all you lose is the ability to have those meaningful(?) 20 character
comments on each line. If you are using those for change control or
something useful, of course you do need them.  But really Don - if you're
_that_ short on DASD don't you have other problems?

 >> and probably load and run faster as it.

Not that I've ever seen any evidence of.  Everything I've seen says that
across the board it's a wash.

+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---