Re: Development Standards -- MIDRANGE-L

While I agree to a degree with the thrust of your argument Jeff - I have to completely disagree in one respect.

The cycle is not just a language feature. Most language features can be relatively simply understood (as long as you know another language in the general category) by simply looking at a reference in a manual. Lists/arrays/collections/etc/ and the functions that operate upon them are easy to identify even if the finer nuances take a while to understand.

That is not the case for the cycle which involves a number of different indicators in obscure column positions. Extra information relating to the primary/secondary nature of files on F-specs. Weird stuff on I and O specs, etc. etc. In addition to having to understand the entire concept in order to identify detail time etc. operations. All of this before you can really grasp what is going on. If the same functionality is coded in direct logic it is far more obvious what is happening. If I have maintenance/upgrading to perform on code that I am not familiar with I know which of the two I want to work with - and I grew up with the cycle! Do I want a newbie RPGers - or even one wth several years experience - to have to pick up the cycle to perform that task - no way.

Add to that the fact that no schools - or even modern books - really teach it any more and I think you have to ignore it for new code. I have been telling my customers for many years to only use the cycle in quick-and-dirty-throw-away updates (of the type that these days SQL is probably better suited for). Not to take the time to remove it from simple reporting programs etc. - just not to perpetuate it into new code.

I need programmers for my shop - whether their background is PHP, Java, .Net, or whatever. I don't need to teach them something as arcane as the cycle because maintenance is everything and I've seen way too many programs in the past where the programmer had clearly spent as much time fighting the cycle as using it. In most cases the program didn't start off that way - it just evolved over time.

So by all means let's not avoid functionality because not all languages support them - but let's not include the RPG cycle in that group.

Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com

On Dec 11, 2016, at 6:46 AM, Jeff Crosby <jlcrosby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 10:20 AM, Raul A Jager W <raul@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

If we, old ones, where able to learn it, the young should be able to. It
is a tool specially designed to generate reports, probably the best in the
industry, why not use it? The fact that other languages don't have it, is
a dis advantage that we do not need to copy.

Agree 100%. Take the "don't use the cycle" to it's logical conclusion and
you're saying "Don't use feature X because it's not available in every
language out there."

And no, the cycle is not the answer to every programming issue.

--

Jeff Crosby
VP Information Systems
UniPro FoodService/Dilgard
P.O. Box 13369
Ft. Wayne, IN 46868-3369
260-422-7531
www.dilgardfoods.com

The opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the opinion of my
company. Unless I say so.
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