RE: RPG IV and CF-spec "keep it IBM"

Under what Rocks? Well geology is/was one of my hobbies.

I consider AS/400 programmers people, however, not gastropods. They work,
they go home, they barbecue on the weekend. They want their language to
provide them with features that make their lives easier.

Sure there are hundreds of people besides the dozen or so on this list that
may want free format RPG. Maybe even 1000 people. But with 500,000 AS/400
installed, and if we make up an average of 1.5 programmers per system,
that's about 750,000 RPG programmers. So assuming I'm not over estimating
the count here, that means about 1/750th of the RPG programmers want this
feature.

Let's say I'm way off, let's say that there are 2,000 programmers out there
that want CF-specs (I doubt it, but I'm easy). And let's say there's only
100,000 RPG programmers in the world. So that's 2 percent that want
CF-specs.

It's kind of like this Republican Tax cut. They're doing it because they
think a few of their vocal contributors will like it. Nobody citizen is
going to stand up and say don't do the tax cut, I don't want it. But many
will say, do the tax cut, I want it.

Then you've go the Fed Chair saying, well, it would be better to not do the
tax cut instead of doing a tax cut. Then there's the President saying that
we're going to cut costs to the government by refinancing the National Debt.
Which everyone thinks is _the_ correct thing to do. It will, increase the
surplus.

But we keep hearing about the tax cut, tax cut... rah rah.

I think the CF-spec is the same way. It isn't even here and people are rah
rahing it. I have little confidence that it will be implemented correctly.
Hans and especially Barbara are very good programmers, but I don't
necessarily believe that NOT having a product planner overseeing the design
of a radical new feature is good.

(FYI: Okay, I'm writing this on an airplane with a guy next to me that is
holding is 7 month old baby. So I'm a little distracted... hence no great
train of thought here...)  // end

Bob Cozzi

http://www.RPGIV.com




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com [mailto:owner-rpg400-l@midrange.com]On
> Behalf Of Eric N. Wilson
> Sent: Thursday, August 05, 1999 2:51 AM
> To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
> Subject: Re: RPG IV and CF-spec "keep it IBM"
>
>
> Bob I sure don't know what rocks you are finding these so called thousands
> of RPG programmers from. (Perhaps S/3 machines). I to speak to probably
> hundreds of RPG programmers and they have been clamoring for free
> format RPG
> since the days of RPG/Free (A wonderful program in it's own right).
>
> I truly can not understand how you can be against this, the reasons that
> you have given in the past emails can and should be moderated by shop
> standards. If anything I believe that the CF spec will save RPG (the flint
> axe of programming languages).
>
> And yes I have been programming since 1972 on various architectures PDP8 -
> PDP11. S/3 S/34 S/38 AS/400 PC's and the list goes on and on. I have tried
> to make it a goal to learn a programming language a year (which I was able
> to do until C++ threw me a curve with Object Orientation) If a programmer
> does not learn and adapt to refinements in languages then they
> are limiting
> their usefulness and ultimately will be moved off into the grungy world of
> continuous maintenance coding with no new development.
>
> It is coming and you might as well get used to the idea. You do
> not have to
> use it. Products that you buy do not have to use it. Why you could even
> specify that vendor packages could not include free format calc specs in
> order to be considered.
>
> Team Toronto full speed ahead and damn the torpedos!
>
> ______________________________________________
> Eric N. Wilson
> President
> Doulos Software & Computer Services
> 2913 N Alder St
> Tacoma WA 98407
>
>
>
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