Re: [Re: RPGILE V4.3 Gotcha]

[boldt@xxxxxxxxxx]

Jim wrote:
>I see, so it's all about, we don't care if it doesn't do what everyone thinks
>it should do, they'll find out it doesn't when their answers come out wrong.
>
>I've pretty much said all I'm going to say on this subject, but know this,
>I will always consider the eval statement to be the weakest part of RPG
>when it could of been the strongest.  I will not trust any of the new things
>to come out of IBM in way of RPG, including any new BIFs they come
>out with, because who knows how they think things should work, obviously
>they don't use them in the real world.
>
>The real world says you do things as they are written.  If  you don't give
>the result that is expected, you better have a darn good reason for it, and
>IMO RTFM is not a good reason.
>
>When one thing is screwy in a compiler I take a very close look at it and
>decide if I want to continue using it.  If two things are wrong, I throw it
away
>and get something that works.  If it was my choice, we wouldn't use RPG
>anymore because of RTFM attitude and RPGs divergence away from solid
>programming techniques.  Unfortunately it's not my choice.
>
>It appears to be IBMs decision to try to make RPG as hard to understand
>and use as they can.  And they're starting to do a very good job of it.


I don't want to prolong this discussion either.  But there are a few
fundamental points I'd like to add.

1) Computer programming is hard.

Many programmers have found RPG II and RPG III easy, not because of
any purposeful design to make them easy, but rather, because these
languages lack the more powerful features of other languages.  With
more powerful tools, of course you have more potential for shooting
yourself in the foot.  (And, of course, RPG programmers have been
asking for more powerful features.  "Be careful what you wish for,
you just might get it!")

As I've mentioned before, I program as a hobby as well as at work.
While programming in RPG and C, I rarely refer to the manuals.  But
using more robust and powerful languages, like Perl and Java, I have
either books cracked open on my desk or browser windows open to
on-line documentation.  And I refer to that documentation frequently.
I don't think my experience is any different than anyone else.  The
more powerful the tool, the greater the need for handy documentation,

At the risk of getting off-topic, look at the language Perl.  This
is quite the interesting language!  It's one of the most flexible and
powerful language I've ever seen, having both static and dynamic
scoping, features that support OOP, and even allowing closures!  But,
it's a language that requires immense caution.  If you're not careful,
you can really mess up badly.  But used properly, it can be a real
joy to use.  It's a language that was definitely not designed to be
easy to use and makes few concessions to ease of use.  Instead, the
language is ideally suited to the more experienced and knowledgeable
programmers who appreciate the power and understand the risks.

2) Learning programming is hard.

Here's another example from my own experience.  About 16 months ago,
I finally got around to installing Linux on my home computer.  (I
had been using OS/2, but I saw little reason to continue using it,
regardless of its quality.)  The thing that struck me the most was
that I felt like a complete idiot!  Here was something almost
completely foreign and I almost felt like I had to learn about
computers from scratch.  But, over time, I learned more and more
about it, and now I'm more or less completely comfortable in that
environment.

My point is that I know how it feels coming into a new environment
and having to relearn fundamental things.  As others have stated
here, many new RPG IV programmers have been bitten by the decimal
precision rules.  But they've learned how it works, and most use
expressions quite happily because they appreciate the extra power
offered by expressions.

3) "There's than one way to do it!"

Finally, this is a saying in the Perl community, often abbreviated
to TMTOWTDI.  If you want to stick with the old fixed-format
opcodes, that's up to you.

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com


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