RE: "Real ILE" ( tangent from RPGIII compiler vs. Visual Basic)

["Bob Cagle" <bcagle@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg Fleming said: 

>I'm one of those programmers someone else mentioned here who never had
much >formal programming education.  I was in a clerical position in our
>marketing department and responded to a job posting for a "trainee"
>position doing RPG programming.  I sat down for two months with a basic
>course from Manta and some slightly more in-depth courses from ATS, and
>learned the basics of RPGIII, subfiles, etc.  This was eight years ago.


>I currently do all my code in /Free, and use procedures for my entry
>parms and all external program calls, as well as the occasional
internal
>subprocedure.  On some rare occasions, I've even used a binding
>directory and /copy to prototype some procedures, but this is where it
>all remains a little fuzzy.

>I sometimes suspect I'm something less than a "real programmer"...

Greg - that last quote just doesn't fit.  Don't sell yourself short -
you have accomplished what many "real programmers" haven't been able to
- the switch to RPGIV and /Free.  I would call you a real programmer.

As far as ILE and the use of modules, it does take a bit of adjustment.
It helps to have had exposure to some of the other object-oriented
languages.  Myself, I have been fortunate enough to have taken classes
on C++ and Java - so ILE RPGIV makes perfect sense to me.  I would
suggest that maybe you consider taking a class on Java, at least for the
OO exposure.  Once you understand OO principles, modules, service
programs, and sub-procedures will click right into place.  (Granted ILE
RPGIV is not a "true" OO language, but the basic concepts are there)

As for the complexity, what we really need for ILE RPGIV is an enhanced
IDE that works similar to other IDEs, like Microsoft Visual Studio.
Everything, all the objects, are grouped into a project that you can
then submit a "build" against.  Why not something like that for ILE
RPGIV?  Create a "project", add the "objects" (modules, display files,
etc.) and then give us a "build" command from within the IDE that
automatically creates the application from the list of objects in the
project.

I know that WDSC comes close to this, but it has a ways to go in order
to further reduce the complexity of ILE.

Bob Cagle
IT Manager
Lynk, Inc.