Re: RPG IV and CF-spec "keep it IBM" -- RPG400-L

Bob,

First, if you don't vote, on what grounds can you complain?  You have made 
some assumptions which seem to be contradicted.  Who says we can't have 
both?  Based on the survey made (which I assume you are referring to) $100 
was required for free format RPGIV.  According to what I have read, the 
implementation of this feature took less time than expected.  I don't remember 
what I spent, but it was considerably less than the allotted $100.

I want it all, CF specs are a nice to have and I will use them if available.  
I just hope they do what I need most, first.  If I had my way, the Rochester 
people and Toronto people would get together and write a few mixed 
language applications that passed parameters.  When they were creating 
their applications, I would have them address the incompatibilities 
between the calling conventions for each language.  When these tasks 
were done, I would have a party and declare that ILE supported integrated 
applications.  

After the party I would have the Rochester people get operational descriptor 
support to work so that I could write what I need today followed by some of the 
obviously needed CL  enhancements.  In the mean time I would ask the 
Toronto people to work on supporting variable type parameters followed 
by support for aliased file names and direct support for dynamically sized 
arrays.  Then I would have a party and declare that I had everything I needed 
to work effectively.

David Morris

>>> "Bob Cozzi" <cozzi@rpgiv.com> 07/29/99 09:18PM >>>
Geeze!

How about we ask Rochester to add database I/O support to CL? Would that
make all the CF-spec "nuts" happy? I mean come on! Even John Carr (who
originally suggested "CF") doesn't think it is a necessary feature.

IBM Toronto has indicated that "most" people want the "CF-spec". However, I
wonder if it is "most" people, or just the majority of the people that
answered their question. After all, if you DON'T want it or DON'T care about
it, why bother telling Toronto? I mean, "most" people that answer the
question are going to want the CF spec.

Don't get me wrong, I'm prefer natural expression syntax than the
limitations that traditional RPGII style code provides. But I just don't see
how supporting:

RPGIII
RPG IV
 and
RPG IV with CF-spec

is going to encourage IT Managers to supporting moving to RPG IV.

So I ask you, if you do NOT care if the CF-spec every sees the light of day,
or DON'T want the CF-spec, to voice your opinion now.
I feel we need an architecture for RPG. We need many poorly designed
features corrected, we need consistent designs and several new features
before we effectively turn RPG IV into CL II.

Let me know what you think.


Bob Cozzi

http://www.RPGIV.com 

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