RE: Source code on IFS

#2 had nothing to do with source PF vs IFS stream file. The (now obsolete) 80 column limit for RPG was imposed by the compiler.



-----Original Message-----
From: Justin Dearing [mailto:zippy1981@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2016 2:41 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Source code on IFS

Steve,

Ok a long list coming from a guy that spent more time on windows and linux boxes than the IBM i.

First of all the fact that source members have char and not varchar means a lot of space is wasted. Someone might tell me with compression or storage internals this is a moot point though. However, if I have a source line with ten characters and four spaces of indent, it takes 15 bytes (one extra for the newline). In a source members thats 80 characters.

Secondly, the hard limit of a column length is really annoying. I write some complex DDL and sometimes an 80 character hard limit is annoying. This is from years of writing stored procedures on Microsoft SQL server, so I tend to write complex joins, common table expressions (WITH CLAUSE) and other things where I tend to indent a lot. I also use the long column names in my SQL. If your used to 80 columns, its probably not something you notice. However write tables with long columns names and add the 10 character labels after the fact, not the other way around.

Third, more text editor support. To my knowledge your choices are RDi, SEU, and some other expensive commercial eclipse tool for editing source members. I SEU in a pinch, and can't justify the price tag of RDi for the occasional CL I write, or the times I have to hand edit SQL in a source member as opposed to calling qsys2.generate_ddl(). However with stuff on the IFS I have the following choices that I actively use:

- SEU in a pinch
- the editor built into farmanager (http://farmanager.com) via ssh
- vi (the one built into pase)
- Notepad++
- Visual Studio Code (via UNC paths)
- PHPStorm, and the other JetBrain IDEs
- Zend Studio

Eventually all those editors will have syntax highlighting for RPG. I'd put money on it. Of course all of them are at least partially open source, so I could write the syntax highlighting config file myself to avoid paying).

Fourth, while its not full change management, git or subversion give me more than I lose in source members. If I check my code into git, I have a time stamp, WITH a user name of when I checked in each line of code. I also can see what files I committed at the same time. I can certainly use release branching to create a home gorwn change management system to keep my auditors happy too,



Justin