RE: Is this the Free-Format that we asked for?

On Thu, 2 Nov 2000, M. Lazarus wrote:

> Scott,
> 
> >On the subject of GOTO's, yuck.  Remove them.  Even with RPG IV in its
> >current state, if one of my programmers is using GOTO's I sit down and
> >teach him program structure.
> 
>   You're assuming that we all have the luxury of never maintaining old, 
> ugly code that, for various reasons can't be completely rewritten and 
> tested.  There has to be a good reason to remove something from the 
> language, other than to force everyone to write better code.  If someone's 
> a poor programmer, making GOTO's unavailable will not magically make them 
> better.
> 

Old code that can't be rewritten will still be in fixed-format style,
not in the new free-format syntax...  Old code really isn't an issue
with the free-format stuff at this time.

5 years from now, however, there will be old, ugly, goto-ridden code
in the free-format syntax if "GOTO" is allowed on free-format specs.
Not having GOTO's will force people to learn to code properly!  



+---
| This is the RPG/400 Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to RPG400-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to RPG400-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to RPG400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---