Re: RPG and JAVA

Thanks. The right tool for the job would seem to be appicable. RPG back
on v2r2 was not fun to use to process string data. At least not the odd
data I had to process. Maye could have written it better, but tha was a
LONG time ago. I did manage to improve processing time of a 24000 foot
tape from 12 hours to 15 minutes. Some things were just involved to get
around limits. And, the time constraints.

John McKee

On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 1:26 AM, John Yeung <gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 9:06 PM, John McKee <jmmckee3@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I know almost nothing about JAVA. Maybe even less.

The first thing is that Java is not all-caps. Unlike Cobol, Fortran,
Lisp, or Basic, it was never spelled with all caps. It has never stood
for anything. It has always just been "Java", since its public
introduction in 1995.

Does JAVA have capabilities that cannot be performed in RPG? What is/are
the advantages of JAVA over RPG?

First thing to get out of the way, lest the RPG defenders get up in
arms, is that RPG is an extremely capable language, especially in
recent versions. Anything you want to do in RPG, you can do in RPG.
There are some things that are more awkward or complicated to do in
RPG than in other languages, but ultimately you still can if you are
determined. Also, RPG is particularly well suited to and highly
optimized for working with DB2 for i.

So, all that being said, Java is indeed better at some things than
RPG. Basically, Java was designed around the idea of object-oriented
programming (OOP), which is a way of looking at problems and
organizing program structure. If your problem is not particularly well
suited to an object-oriented mindset, then your problem is most likely
not particularly well suited to Java. Just speaking from a language
point of view. The object-oriented things that are Java's bread and
butter are things that RPG is not designed to handle.

That last paragraph probably means nothing to you. It's not easy to
give a quick explanation of OOP that really captures its essence. But
if you want to really understand what differentiates Java and RPG at a
deep and fundamental level, you kind of have to investigate the whole
OOP thing. Otherwise, Java may seem more-or-less like RPG but with
different syntax and different names for things. And on some level,
you can certainly use Java that way (just as you can more-or-less use
a whole range of programming languages that way). But if you are going
to use it that way, there's not much point to it, is there?

Is there a web page that explains any of this?

I haven't stumbled upon any one resource that does a good job of
explaining this stuff. If anyone knows of one, I'd be happy to learn
of it. I have found you just have to go out there and do a lot of
searching and reading yourself (at least nowadays there's Google; that
wasn't the case when Java was brand new!).

If I had more time, I would make an attempt to explain my take on OOP
and what aspects of the Java language are not easy to replicate in
RPG. Maybe I will still try, some time later.

Don did touch on one thing that you don't have to understand OOP to
appreciate: There is a lot of software out there for Java (a ton just
in its standard library; an almost incomprehensible amount when you
include third-party stuff), and the vast majority of it is free. By
"software" I mean ready-made packages callable by Java, somewhat
analogous to ILE modules or service programs for an RPG programmer.
Java is a gateway to that software. In that capacity, Java does
clearly exceed RPG.

John Y.
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