Re: PDM/SEU -- RPG400-L

Very good points made here.  Thank you for the time involved.





dhandy@isgroup.net on 05/30/2000 06:33:05 PM
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Subject:        Re: PDM/SEU

L.S.,

>Whatever productivity gains
>you may find with the ability to cut and paste you still lose time when
>trying to correctly position RPG source. 

Wrong.  I can type fixed format RPG *faster* in my PC editor than in
SEU.  I'm not talking about using WordPad; but a *good* PC editor
which also knows RPG is another story.

My personal preference is Flex/Edit.  And yes, editors are a personal
thing, especially when you can personalize them. :)  Both CODE and
Flex are extensible and can be customized to personal taste.

But you are right that cut-and-paste is faster from a PC.  Plus I can
use multiple clipboards.  Or use column block selections.  Or quickly
cut-and-paste (or drag & drop) just parts of a line instead of
complete lines.

>The day someone
>gives me a low cost editor with promptable source records on the PC I
>will switch too.  

Define "low cost".  

The cheapest PC editor I know of which understands RPG is QuickCode (
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/medialink ) but it is not in
the same league as things like CODE/400 or Flex.

Bob Cozzi will let you use his Code Studio free during the beta period
with no announced ending date to the beta yet.  See www.rpgiv.com

I don't know yet what the new pricing structure of CODE/400 may be,
but there are certainly strong indications it will soon be less then
the current license fee.

However, I'd argue the many tools are "low cost" when they increase
productivity.

Regarding promptable source lines:

Although Flex can prompt lines, I rarely do it.  I know the layout of
the RPG specs too well.  I just press TAB to advance the cursor.
Unlike SEU and the TABS command, the editor is context sensitive and
moves the cursor based on the current line type.  And a backtab moves
backward in the same manner.

But if you do like prompting calcs, each opcode has specific prompts
available which enable/disable and label factor 1&2 etc for their
meaning for the specific opcode.  If you press F4 on an existing line,
the prompt is specific to the opcode.  If you are inserting lines, you
key the opcode first and the prompt instantly changes to match.

> I feel sure that given time,
>resources, and SOURCE SEU could be made to duplicate what you can do on
>a PC 

Some features could be.  Some would be inherently impossible with a
block mode interface.

For instance, unlimited undo/redo.  Instead of just F5 to refresh the
screen, Flex gives me *unlimited* undo (and redo).  I can back track
keystroke by keystroke when necessary, including cursor movements.  (I
think CODE's undo does not include cursor movement, but I'm not sure
since I don't use it.)  If you undo all changes on a line, the source
date switches back too.

You might be surprised how useful undo/redo really is instead of just
the F5=panic button.  It's one of those things you don't think you
need until you have had it, then you don't ever want to give it up.

Another example is dynamic coloring.  No silly hex codes needed in
column 5 to make comments be a different color.  Or losing colors if
you shift the attribute off the left-side (or type over it).  And
colors are *much* more useful than just highlighting entire lines in
various colors.  Instead, they are dynamically sensitive to the
current line type and column.  The opcode is a different color than
factor 2, so even if they run together they are easily readable.
Again, it may not sound like a big deal.  Until you've used it.  You'd
be surprised how much difference it can make in readability.
(Languages like CL use different colors for commands, keywords,
constants, arguments, labels, comments, etc.)

Another feature many IDE's are starting to exploit should make its way
to RPG editors but (AFAIK) none of them do -- yet.  I don't even
remember what the proper name is for it, but the concept is that as
you type a call to a BIF or your own function, you get a floating
tooltip which lists the order of the arguments and highlights the one
you are currently keying.  IOW, if you type %scan( a tooltip would
appear with something like %scan( search: source: [start] ) and search
would be in boldface.  The tooltip would disappear when you are done,
unless you hoover the mouse over it.

Remembering all the BIFs is actually fairly easy -- but as your
collection of service programs grow or you amass prototypes to various
APIs or C library functions, etc, you can probably see how this would
be helpful.  There just isn't any good way for a block mode editor to
do the same thing.

Likewise, another feature I expect to see in future versions of RPG
editors is name completion.  This is where as you type a variable name
or procedure call, it will optionally offer a pick list based on the
characters you've typed so far, and complete the name for you if you
wish.  With 6 char names, that is not a big deal.  But with longer
names and especially with longer procedure names, it can be very
useful.  Having a list which changes with each keystroke is just not
practical on a 5250 device.

>What does a PC editor really do for you

Lots of stuff.  The GUI has little to do with it.  I don't use my
mouse that much -- I'm a keyboard person myself.  I used a PC for
editing RPG before I ever ran Windoze.  One of my pet peeves are GUIs
designed by people who don't understand how important accelerator keys
are, and that there needs to be easy keyboard equivalents for all
operations.  But that's another topic.  (The ironic thing is that it
is so  easy to add accelerator keys and set the "z-order" of window
controls, but evidently many  GUI developers don't know how to use a
keyboard...  That is the fault of the developer, not the GUI.)

For me, many productivity gains are not from the GUI but from having
an intelligent work station which can examine context and keystrokes
as you make them.  See examples above.  Even making the cursor jump by
"words" requires a PC emulator or thin client.  The 5250 data stream
can't support that without going into "word processing" mode on the WS
controller.  And as soon as you do that, you lose different
functionality so I don't think anyone will ever rewrite SEU to use WP
mode.  At least with an emulator you can set your keymap to make
Ctrl-Left/Right and the End key be useful in SEU.

Numerous other features don't rely on keystroke sensitive logic so
could in theory be added to SEU but I don't think you'll ever see them
happen, even with being able to add your own line commands to SEU now.

Things like dynamically showing you nesting levels or finding the
opposite end of a particular structured code block.  (RPG Alive may do
some of this too, but note it also needs a PC to examine the buffer in
real time.)

Flex lets me take two versions of source and do a side-by-side
comparison differencing and merge.  The two sides scroll together and
stay synchronized on lines which are in both versions.  It uses color
coding to denote changes in lines, or additions, deletions, etc.  It
is very simple to move line(s) between them, or use the mouse to drag
& drop lines.  (I don't know if CODE has this capability or not.)

I like being able to see much more of the source at one time than I
can with a 27x132 display.  (I see 46 lines if I maximize the window.)
I like being able to have multiple windows to the *same* source member
at the same time, all editable.  For example, I often keep one window
parked on my D specs for adding another variable declaration should I
decide to create another work field as I'm keying calcs.  Or to pop
open another window to examine or work on a subroutine or procedure
then return to where I was.

I like movement within the source to be virtually instantaneous.  I
have a dedicated RISC box in my home where I'm the only user, so it is
not like SEU response is "bad".  But it can't beat keystroke
accelerators to instantly move you to the top or bottom, jump to the
subroutine named on the line containing the cursor, collapse the
source to just the lines containing the variable under the cursor,
instantly jump to bookmarked positions, collapse to "outline" mode,
etc.

By the time you can press F10 and get the cursor on the command line,
I'm already at the new spot.  And I can just as easily use undo to
return to where I was.  It's literally instantaneous, even with
members containing many thousands of statements.

I like being able to customize the keyboard any way I like.  And the
toolbars and menus.  I like being able to create macros to extend the
way the editor works.  I like the advanced pattern matching of regular
expression search and replace.  I like being able to create
collections of code snippets which can be quickly selected from a
template list.  The template can prompt for variable text, then insert
formatted code and reposition the cursor to wherever makes sense for
that template.

The list goes on.  

Doug
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