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

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric DeLong [mailto:Eric.DeLong@pmsi-services.com]
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 10:34 AM
To: "RPG400-L@midrange.com"
Subject: RE: Is this the Free-Format that we asked for?

     I was planning to stay out of this debate, but the thought occurs
     to me.... IBM has stated that JAVA is of strategic importance to
     its future, and has further stated that it wants programmers
     writing software in Java (or flipping burgers, as we prefer). The
     RPG community was/is very reluctant to rush right out and learn the
     new language and its syntax, so IBM gave RPG a Java flourish by
     making free-format code resemble Java code. Perhaps once people get
     comfortable with the coding style, they'll be more inclined to look
     at Java for development.
    
     just a thought....
     eric.delong@pmsi-services.com

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
No, I wasn't really trying to be funny...
    
You keep talking about how the statement terminator will make parsing
easier for the compiler developers... I don't really think thats an issue,
here -- they can parse it either way.
    
The real question is what will people be comfortable with?
Is a syntax better if its more like C or more like perl or more like
Visual Basic or more like RPG?
    
I think that the best idea is to keep the language like RPG.  Yes, add the
features (such as free form stuff) that the other languages have had for
30 some years already.   Add in the stuff that people like about those
languages!  Add in the stuff that makes life easier for programmers!
    
But don't make it SO much like the other languages that we might as well
use C or VB to begin with...  It needs to still be RPG.
    
But, of course, thats just my opinion.  You're welcome to your own, even
if you ARE wrong! :-)
    
    
    
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